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on Agricultural Economics |
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Issue of 2005‒04‒03
four papers chosen by |
| By: | Secchi, Silvia; Jha, Manoj; Kurkalova, Lyubov; Feng, HongLi; Gassman, Philip W.; Kling, Catherine L. |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the implications of treating different environmental benefits as the primary target of policy design. We focus on two scenarios, estimating for both of them in-stream sediment, nutrient loadings, and carbon sequestration. In the first, we assess the impact of a program designed to improve water quality in Iowa on carbon sequestration, and in the second, we calculate the water quality impact of a program aimed at maximizing carbon sequestration. In both cases, the policy instrument is the retirement of land from agricultural production. Our results, limited to the state of Iowa, and to the case of set-aside for water quality or carbon sequestration purposes, indicate that the amount of co-benefits depends on what indicators are used to measure water quality. In general, this study shows that improving “water quality” in the sense of reducing nutrient or sediment loadings is too vague. Even if it is taken to refer to in-stream nutrients, because the responses of nitrogen and phosphorus to conservation efforts are not well correlated, this terminology may not provide much guidance. |
| Date: | 2005–03–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:12264&r=agr |
| By: | Feng, HongLi; Kling, Catherine L. |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we study the social efficiency of private carbon markets that include trading in agricultural soil carbon sequestration when there are significant co-benefits (positive environmental externalities) associated with the practices that sequester carbon. Likewise, we investigate the efficiency of government-run conservation programs that are designed to promote a broad array of environmental attributes (both carbon sequestration and its co-benefits) for the supply of carbon. Finally, policy design and efficiency issues associated with the potential interplay between a private carbon market and a government conservation program are studied. Empirical analyses for an area that represents a significant potential source of carbon sequestration and its associated co-benefits illustrate the magnitude and complexity of these issues in real-world policy design. |
| Date: | 2005–03–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:12269&r=agr |
| By: | Joshua D. Angrist; Adriana Kugler |
| Abstract: | Natural and agricultural resources for which there is a substantial black market, such as coca, opium, and diamonds, appear especially likely to be exploited by the parties to a civil conflict. On the other hand, these resources may also provide one of the few reliable sources of income in the countryside. In this paper, we study the economic and social consequences of a major shift in the production of coca paste from Peru and Bolivia to Colombia, where most coca leaf is now harvested. This shift, which arose in response to the disruption of the "air bridge" that previously ferried coca paste into Colombia, provided an exogenous boost in the demand for Colombian coca leaf. Our analysis shows this shift generated economic gains in rural areas, primarily in the form of increased self-employment earnings and increased labor supply by teenage boys. There is little evidence of widespread economic spillovers, however. The results also suggest that the rural areas which saw accelerated coca production subsequently became much more violent. Taken together, these findings support the view that the Colombian civil conflict is fueled by the financial opportunities that coca provides. This is in line with a recent literature which attributes the extension of civil conflicts to economic rewards and an environment that favors insurgency more than to the persistence of economic or political grievances. |
| JEL: | O1 R0 Q0 |
| Date: | 2005–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11219&r=agr |
| By: | Lee J. Alston; Joseph P. Ferrie |
| Abstract: | We explore the dynamics of the agricultural ladder (the progression from laborer to cropper to renter) in the U.S. before 1940 using individual-level data from a survey of farmers conducted in 1938 in Jefferson County, Arkansas. Using information on each individual%u2019s complete career history (their tenure status at each date, in some cases as far back as 1890), their location, and a variety of their personal and farm characteristics, we develop and test hypotheses to explain the time spent as a tenant, sharecropper, and wage laborer. The pessimistic view of commentators who saw sharecropping and tenancy as a trap has some merit, but individual characteristics played an important role in mobility. In all periods, some farmers moved up the agricultural ladder quite rapidly while others remained stuck on a rung. Ascending the ladder was an important route to upward mobility, particularly for blacks, before large-scale migration from rural to urban places. |
| JEL: | N3 N5 J6 |
| Date: | 2005–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11231&r=agr |