Motivations to grow energy crops: the role of crop and contract attributes

Perennial energy crops are a promising source of bioenergy whose production involves production risks, long‐term commitment of land and need for crop‐specific investments without the coverage of crop insurance potentially available for conventional crops. We conduct a choice experiment in five states in the Midwestern and South‐central regions of the U.S. to examine the effect of crop‐contract attributes on the joint discrete‐continuous choice decisions to adopt an energy crop and convert acres to it from a status quo use, while controlling for the effect of various farmers’ risk and time preferences, sociodemographic characteristics, and availability of crop insurance for conventional crops. We find robust evidence that high discount rates, high upfront establishment costs and need for crop‐specific investments create disincentives for adoption and allocation of land to energy crop production. The effects of riskiness of returns and risk aversion are less robust across specifications. The effect of conventional crop insurance on the energy crop adoption decision differs across types of insurance; in particular, farmers with revenue insurance are statistically significantly less likely to adopt an energy crop. Our results have implications for the design of effective contracts and policy incentives to induce the production of energy crops.     

Social contracts,markets and efficiency: Groundwater irrigation in North India

This paper uses primary data to analyze the institutions and informal markets that govern groundwater allocation in a sugarcane-cultivating village in North India. We find that, in contrast to earlier literature, the observed water trades result in efficient water allocation across farms. We interpret this and other stylized facts in terms of a social contract using a simple bargaining model with limited inter-player transfers. Poor functioning of the power sector leads to reduced pumping and a water supply constraint. Simulations show that power supply reform can significantly increase farm yields, and be financed out of increased farm profits.     

Motivations and Barriers to Corporate Environmental Management

This paper integrates two conceptual frameworks, utility maximization and institutional theory, to analyze voluntary corporate environmental management. The utility maximization or economic approach centers on motivations to decrease cost, increase revenue and improve manager utility. Institutional theory emphasizes how external pressures from market and non‐market constituents shape the firm's environmental efforts. We view the two frameworks as complementary and postulate a model that includes both types of influences. Survey data from six major industries consisting of a diverse set of facilities are used to estimate the effects of economic and institutional factors on a facility's use of environmental practices and pollution‐prevention activities. Our results support the hypothesized model, and show that cost barriers, management attitudes toward environmental stewardship, company ownership and external institutional forces, including competitiveness, investor and regulatory pressures, all affect a facility's environmental practices and pollution prevention activities. Findings suggest that a multifaceted policy strategy is needed to advance corporate environmental management across diverse firms. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Valuation of Landmass Degradation Using Fuzzy Hedonic Method: A Case Study of National Capital Region

A Hedonic model to determine the revealed willingness to pay for landmass of different suitability classes, based on landmass functional characteristics obtained through subjective assessments, is developed for the National Capital Region in India. The inherent non-specificity involved in subjective evaluation is minimized using fuzzy logic based regression technique. The proposed fuzzy regression involves regression using central values of triangular fuzzy number and minimization of non-specificity using linear programming. The revealed willingness-to-pay for landmass of different suitability classes is used for valuation of disbenefits due to urban expansion on landmass of different agricultural suitability classes in National Capital Territory of Delhi. Appropriate pricing policies to prevent the future inappropriate landuse practices are developed using the landmass valuation.     

The effects of third party certification on voluntary self-regulation of accidents in the U.S. chemical industry

We explore whether the introduction of mandatory third party certification in 2005 under the Responsible Care program has reduced the probability and severity of accidents in participating facilities in the U.S. chemical industry. Using a sample of 10,315 observations from 1136 facilities owned by 566 RC and non-RC firms between 1996 and 2010, we estimate the average treatment effect of third party certification. We find that the difference-in-difference estimate of the average treatment effect is statistically insignificant. This result is robust to various model specifications including the potential endogeniety of third party certification due to a firm’s self-selection into RC.     

Preferences, Technology, and the Environment: Understanding the Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis

We derive a simple expression for the income-pollution path using the standard static model of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC). This expression makes it straightforward to identify the general characteristics of utility and pollution functions that lead to such a curve. We show that suitable preferences can always lead to an EKC while there is no technology that yields an EKC for all types of preferences, and we derive a sufficient condition for technology that leads to an EKC for almost all types of preferences. Our results hold for a model with multiple goods with different pollution intensities and for a production economy with nonconstant relative price of consumption and environmental effort. We derive our results without assuming specific functional forms and we encompass several other models as special cases.     

Cost-Effective Targeting of Land Retirement to Improve Water Quality with Endogenous Sediment Deposition Coefficients

An integrated framework that combines spatial and biophysical attributes of land with a hydrological model and an economic model is developed to identify cropland for enrollment in the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program. Sediment deposition coefficients are determined endogenously depending on the land-use decisions on other land parcels. Application of this framework to a watershed in Illinois demonstrates that highly sloping land adjacent to water bodies should be selected for retirement. A marginal value rental payment scheme can achieve program goals of 20% sediment abatement at 39% lower cost than a productivity-based rental scheme.     

Inducing the adoption of emerging technologies for sustainable intensification of food and renewable energy production: insights from applied economics*

Emerging advances in sustainable intensification technologies have the potential to transform land use and crop management approaches in ways that can increase resource productivity and reduce adverse environmental impacts of agricultural production. This paper describes emerging technologies that can sustainably intensify food and renewable energy production. We apply the findings from studies examining the adoption of technologies with similar stylized features to provide insights about the incentives and barriers for the adoption of these emerging technologies. We also present a landscape-based systems approach, based on welfare economics, to go beyond relying on a positive approach to explain observed adoption decisions to examining normative questions about the optimal mix, level, and location of adoption of these technologies to achieve desired societal outcomes. We conclude with a discussion of the insights from applied economics for the design of policy incentives to achieve these outcomes.     

Stochastic Technology, Risk Preferences, and Adoption of Site-Specific Technologies

A model of farmer decision making is developed to determine the extent to which uncertainties about soil fertility and weather affect the value of site-specific technologies (SSTs) using jointly estimated risk and technology parameters. Uncertainty can lead risk-averse farmers to apply more fertilizers and generate more pollution than in the certainty case. Ignoring uncertainty and risk aversion would overestimate the economic and environmental benefits of SSTs and underestimate the subsidy required to induce adoption. Accounting for uncertainties and risk preferences might explain the low observed adoption rates of SSTs. Improving the accuracy of SSTs would increase the incentives for adoption.     

Market distortions and export performance: India’s exports of manufactures in the 1970s

Zusammenfassung Marktst?rungen und die Exporte eines Landes: Indiens Industriegüterexporte in den siebziger Jahren. — Aus einem Heckscher-Ohlin-Modell mit mehreren L?ndern und mehreren Gütern werden Vorstellungen darüber abgeleitet, wie sich Verzerrungen der Güter- und Faktorm?rkte auf die Kapitalintensit?t von Industrien, auf die Zusammensetzung der Warenexporte und auf die Exportt?tigkeit auswirken. Diese Modellvorstellungen werden mit Erfolg benutzt, um die indische Situation zu erkl?ren. Die Verzerrungen der Faktorm?rkte in Indien haben eine gr?Βere Kapitalintensit?t seiner Industrien bewirkt; Verzerrungen der Güterm?rkte haben zu einer Umkehr in der Exportt?tigkeit geführt: Einige subventionierte kapitalintensive Industrien sind auf den Weltm?rkten leistungsf?higer als seine arbeitsintensiven Industrien.

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Résumé Distorsions de marché et la performance exportatrice: les exportations manufacturières de l’Inde dans les années soixante-dix. — Avec succès l’auteur explique la situation indienne gráce aux propositions qui sont dérivées d’un multi-pays et multi-biens cadre du type Heckscher-Ohlin pour analyser les effets des distorsions sur le marché des biens et des facteurs á l’intensité capitalistique des industries, á la composition des biens exportés et á la performance exportatrice. Les distorsions sur les marchés des facteurs aux Indes ont augmenté l’intensité capitalistique de ses industries; les distorsions sur les marchés des biens ont conduit aux inversions de la performance exportatrice de ses industries — quelques industries intensives á capital et subventionées révèlent une meilleure performance exportatrice sur les marchés mondiaux que des industries intensives á main-d’∁uvre.

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Resumen Distorsiones de mercado y comportamiento de exportación: las exportaciones de manufacturas de la India en los afios 1970. — Se utilizan exitosamente proposiciones derivadas de un marco multi-paises y multi-productos de Heckscher-Ohlin acerca del impacto de distorsiones en los mercados de bienes y factures sobre la intensidad de capital de las industrias, la composición de productos de las exportaciones y el comportamiento de las exportaciones para explicar la situaci?n de la India. Distorsiones en el mercado de factures en la India han resultado en una mayor intensidad de capital de sus industrias; distorsiones en el mercado de bienes en la India han llevado a reversiones en el comportamiento de exportation de sus industrias — algunas industrias intensivas en capital subsidiadas tienen un comportamiento mejor en los mercados mundiales que sus industrias intensivas en mano de obra.