Assessing a Policy Grab Bag: Federal Water Policy Reform

This article examines the economic impacts of policy alternatives for addressing allocative inefficiencies among agricultural, urban, and environmental uses of federal water. The Central Valley Project Improvement Act, composed of multiple incentive–based and command–and–control policies, forms the context for this analysis. Estimated multi–output agricultural revenue functions and urban water demand functions are incorporated into a nonlinear programming model designed to predict changes in water use, returns to agriculture, and urban consumer surplus. Results suggest that analysis that does not explicitly model policy instruments implemented at sub–optimal levels and, as part of a package of reforms, could over– or underestimate the costs, benefits, and effectiveness of each policy instrument.     

基于演化博弈的灌溉用水户水权交易相关主体行为决策

以灌溉用水户水权交易过程中相关主体的行为决策为研究线索,构建包含地方政府、供水机构、农户三方主体演化博弈模型,并基于新疆昌吉州的498份农户调查数据,利用MATLAB工具对灌溉用水户水权交易过程中相关主体决策进行仿真分析。结果表明：地方政府通过设定合理的奖惩基数,同时将农户的回购水权价格提高至执行水价的5.58倍以上,可有效激励供水机构采取积极的供水策略;供水机构的供水效率是决定灌溉用水户水权交易达成的关键因素,供水效率的提升不仅能增强农户的交易意愿,还可显著降低地方政府的水权回购成本;农户参与水权交易的意愿受到供水机构积极经营的影响,其交易水权产生增收效果要求供水效率至少需额外提升0.034,且地方政府出台更具激励性的水权回购价格。     

农地城市流转社会理性决策框架构建及决策要素分析

本文提出了农地城市流转社会理性决策框架的构建方向,指出应当使农地城市流转决策实现从经济理性、个体理性到社会理性．从完全理性到有限理性的转变,且应把不确定与不可逆理念贯穿农地城市流转社会理性决策研究的始终。并在此基础上,对农地城市流转社会理性决策的决策要素进行了分析,从而构建了农地城市流转社会理性决策的基本分析框架。     

Forest Conservation in Costa Rica when Nonuse Benefits are Uncertain but Rising

Stochastic dynamic programming is used to investigate optimal holding of primary tropical forest in humid Costa Rica when future nonuse benefits of forest conservation are uncertain and increasing. The quasi-option value of maintaining primary forests is included as a component of investment in natural capital. Although the impact of uncertainty on conservation incentives is substantial, our results indicate that a rising trend in future benefits and compensation by the international community for beneficial spillovers are more important factors in determining optimal holdings of forest stocks. Without compensatory payments, however, further deforestation may be warranted.     

Dynamic Random Utility Modeling: A Monte Carlo Analysis

Applied studies of commercial fishing have largely ignored the intertemporal aspects of repeated site choices. For many fisheries, fishermen might choose a dynamically optimal cruise trajectory rather than myopic day-to-day strategies and a model that ignores these considerations will likely lead to biased parameter estimates and poor policy guidance. A dynamic random utility model is developed that utilizes the same information as static site-choice models but is entrenched in the principles of dynamic optimization. Using Monte Carlo analysis, we evaluate the performance of this estimator as compared to the static model for a variety of simulated fishery types.     

How Valuable Is On-Farm Work to Farmers?

In this article, we estimate a rural household model that allows specific tastes for working on-farm and can fit the data as well as the general model of Lopez . We use two samples that are matched by individual characteristics and adopt the method for matched surveys proposed by Arellano and Meghir . We replicate using French data, the empirical finding of Elhorst who reports evidence that implicit wages of on-farm family labor are significantly below off-farm wages. We then provide estimates of the lower bounds for preferences for on-farm work for males and females which are significant and positive.     

我国水资源的分配体系及其有效性分析

地表水的有效配置要求水资源的用水权是可转让的,地下水的有效配置则要求考虑使用者成本。而我国现行的水资源由行政分配,用水权无法转让,而且实行国家养水,福利供水政策,导致水过低,造成目前用水浪费,污染严重的局面,从水资源有效配置的角度出发,分析了我国水资源分配体系中存在的问题及影响因素,并就如何提高水资源的配置效率提供了一些建议。     

Non‐market valuation: usage and impacts in environmental policy and management in Australia

An extensive literature exists on environmental nonmarket valuation research. It appears that results from these studies should be useful inputs to decision‐making about environmental policy or management. Here, we investigate the extent to which this occurs in practice in Australian environmental management bodies. Nonmarket valuation experts were surveyed about their studies that they believed to have influenced policy. Then, decision‐makers in environmental bodies were interviewed about the level of influence nonmarket valuation has had on their decisions. We find that researchers' perceptions of the influence that nonmarket valuation has on decision‐making are overly optimistic. Interviews with decision‐makers suggest that nonmarket valuation is little used in decision‐making. Indeed, the majority of them are unfamiliar with nonmarket valuation techniques. Nevertheless, once the concept was explained to them, many decision‐makers believed it could benefit environmental policy. Researchers' perceptions of the reasons for low usage of nonmarket valuation are largely inaccurate. We suggest a range of strategies that economists can use to promote the use of nonmarket valuation in environmental policy and management decisions, including ways to improve communication and engagement with decision‐makers, and strategies to increase the capacity for decision‐makers to use nonmarket valuation results.     

A generalized method for valuing agricultural farms under uncertainty

The opacity of the farm market means that valuations are based primarily on expert estimates rather than on actual transaction prices. The valuation method based on the two cumulative distribution functions (VMTCDF), created by Ballestero (1971), improves the synthetic method based on estimating the market value of an asset by establishing a proportional relation between the asset and one external variable. However, in most cases the expert must consider multiple external variables. This paper proposes a definitive extension to k indexes with a methodology particularly applicable to the field of valuation of non-market goods or markets where little information is available as may be the case with the valuation of agricultural land. The contribution is illustrated with an empirical example.