This outstanding text, a follow-up to the authors' award-winning 1982 text, provides a thorough treatment of economic welfare theory and develops a complete theoretical and empirical framework for applied project and policy evaluation. The authors illustrate how this theory can be used to develop policy analysis from both theory and estimation in a variety of areas including: international trade, the economics of technological change, agricultural economics, the economics of information, environmental economics, and the economics of extractive and renewable natural resources. Building on willingness-to-pay (WTP) measures as the foundation for applied welfare economics, the authors develop measures for firms and households where households are viewed as both consumers and owner/sellers of resources. Possibilities are presented for (1) approximating WTP with consumer surplus, (2) measuring WTP exactly subject to errors in existing econometric work, and (3) using duality theory to specify econometric equations consistent with theory. Later chapters cover specific areas of welfare measurement under imperfect competition, uncertainty, incomplete information, externalities, and dynamic considerations. Applications are considered explicitly for policy issues related to information, international trade, the environment, agriculture, and other natural resource issues. The Welfare Economics of Public Policy is ideal for graduate and undergraduate courses in applied welfare economics, public policy, agricultural policy, and environmental economics and provides an essential reference for practitioners of applied welfare economics.

After all the research on agricultural risk to date, the treatment of risk in agricultural research is far from harmonious. Many competing risk models have been proposed. Some new methodologies are largely untested. Some of the leading empirical methodologies in agricultural economic research are poorly suited for problems with aggregate data where risk averse behavior is less likely to be important. This book is intended to (i) define the current state of the literature on agricultural risk research, (ii) provide a critical evaluation of economic risk research on agriculture to date and (iii) set a research agenda that will meet future needs and prospects. This type of research promises to become of increasing importance because agricultural policy in the United States and elsewhere has decidedly shifted from explicit income support objectives to risk-related motivations of helping farmers deal with risk. Beginning with the 1996 Farm Bill, the primary set of policy instruments from U.S. agriculture has shifted from target prices and set aside acreage to agricultural crop insurance. Because this book is intended to have specific implications for U.S. agricultural policy, it has a decidedly domestic scope, but clearly many of the issues have application abroad. For each of the papers and topics included in this volume, individuals have been selected to give the strongest and broadest possible treatment of each facet of the problem. The result is this comprehensive reference book on the economics of agricultural risk.

This book presents the first thorough economic analysis of current agricultural biotechnology regulation. The contributors, most of whom are agricultural economists working either in universities or NGOs, address issues such as commercial pesticides, the costs of approving new products, liability, benefits, consumer acceptance, regulation and its impacts, transgenic crops, social welfare implications, and biosafety. Richard E. Just is distinguished University Professor and former Chair, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Maryland at College Park. Julian M. Alston is Professor, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California at Davis. David Zilberman is Chair, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California at Berkeley.

This outstanding text, a follow-up to the authors' award-winning 1982 text, provides a thorough treatment of economic welfare theory and develops a complete theoretical and empirical framework for applied project and policy evaluation. The authors illustrate how this theory can be used to develop policy analysis from both theory and estimation in a variety of areas including: international trade, the economics of technological change, agricultural economics, the economics of information, environmental economics, and the economics of extractive and renewable natural resources. Building on willingness-to-pay (WTP) measures as the foundation for applied welfare economics, the authors develop measures for firms and households where households are viewed as both consumers and owner/sellers of resources. Possibilities are presented for (1) approximating WTP with consumer surplus, (2) measuring WTP exactly subject to errors in existing econometric work, and (3) using duality theory to specify econometric equations consistent with theory. Later chapters cover specific areas of welfare measurement under imperfect competition, uncertainty, incomplete information, externalities, and dynamic considerations. Applications are considered explicitly for policy issues related to information, international trade, the environment, agriculture, and other natural resource issues. The Welfare Economics of Public Policy is ideal for graduate and undergraduate courses in applied welfare economics, public policy, agricultural policy, and environmental economics and provides an essential reference for practitioners of applied welfare economics.

Trans-boundary water resources are often a cause of conflict among riparian entities. Increasing demand for water resources and deterioration of existing water sources underscore the need to resolve conflicts over the allocation of consumption and pollution rights among conflicting uses and users. Because economic growth of the entities that share a water resource depends on sustainability of the resource, water has great potential as a basis for cooperation among political entities. However, enforcement of cooperation particularly in international settings is limited. Thus, parties sharing a water resource will form and remain in a cooperating coalition only when economic incentives for each can be identified. This book offers an economic approach to resolution of conflicts by identifying economic mechanisms that encourage sustainable cooperation. The book includes discussions on international, interstate, and intrastate disputes regarding both water quantity and water quality issues. It presents mechanisms for facilitating cooperation among users from agricultural, industrial, domestic, and environmental sectors. It considers the experience and potential in many regions around the world including Australia (the Muray-Darling Basin), Latin America (Chile), the Middle East (Israel and the Palestinian Authority), the U.S. (California, Florida's Everglades, Hawaii, and the Chesapeake Bay), and Africa (South Africa, Lesotho). Part I of the book discusses international experience in forming water coalitions and offers an illustrative model of water quality coalitions. It emphasizes the dependence of sustainability of international agreements on the practical ability to create incentivesthrough economic mechanisms and political linkages that overcome the problem of limited enforcement due to sovereignty claims. Part II of the book discusses management of intrastate U.S. water resources involving competing local jurisdictions or user groups and the U.S. and Australian attempts to facilitate state management of interstate water resources through federal cooperation. Part III of the book explores the expanding scope of trans-boundary water resource issues that contribute to complexity of conflict beyond traditional interests such as allocation and navigation rights. In particular, it analyzes the economic implications of nutrient, land, and airshed management in an environment where the interaction of trans-boundary water resources with the ecological system is considered. Trans-boundary water usage and infrastructure are discussed in the context of privatization and political uncertainty. Part IV of the book examines economic solutions to trans-boundary water allocation including water markets, tradable water permits, contractual arrangements, and coordinated management. The interaction between ground and surface water and the interaction between desalinated, recycled, and fresh water is analyzed in the context of optimal water allocation. The book concludes with a critical discussion of the role and potential of the economics profession in contributing to conflict resolution and management of trans-boundary water resources. The strengths and weaknesses of economic analysis are discussed with special consideration of the modern tools of bargaining theory and game theory that go beyond economic efficiency in considering political realities.

The practical value of intuitive insights provided by innovative scholars in the past drives much of the current development in applied welfare economics. This single volume presents the key works that serve as a basis for applied welfare economic practices, the major papers that develop the methodology of applied economic welfare measurement and some of the most exemplary applications in the fields of welfare work. This indispensable book is designed to provide students and scholars with a convenient single source of the essential foundations in applied welfare economics.

Trans-boundary water resources are often a cause of conflict among riparian entities. Increasing demand for water resources and deterioration of existing water sources underscore the need to resolve conflicts over the allocation of consumption and pollution rights among conflicting uses and users. Because economic growth of the entities that share a water resource depends on sustainability of the resource, water has great potential as a basis for cooperation among political entities. However, enforcement of cooperation particularly in international settings is limited. Thus, parties sharing a water resource will form and remain in a cooperating coalition only when economic incentives for each can be identified. This book offers an economic approach to resolution of conflicts by identifying economic mechanisms that encourage sustainable cooperation. The book includes discussions on international, interstate, and intrastate disputes regarding both water quantity and water quality issues. It presents mechanisms for facilitating cooperation among users from agricultural, industrial, domestic, and environmental sectors.It considers the experience and potential in many regions around the world including Australia (the Muray-Darling Basin), Latin America (Chile), the Middle East (Israel and the Palestinian Authority), the U.S. (California, Florida's Everglades, Hawaii, and the Chesapeake Bay), and Africa (South Africa, Lesotho). Part I of the book discusses international experience in forming water coalitions and offers an illustrative model of water quality coalitions. It emphasizes the dependence of sustainability of international agreements on the practical ability to create incentives through economic mechanisms and political linkages that overcome the problem of limited enforcement due to sovereignty claims. Part II of the book discusses management of intrastate U.S. water resources involving competing local jurisdictions or user groups and the U.S. and Australian attempts to facilitate state management of interstate water resources through federal cooperation. Part III of the book explores the expanding scope of trans-boundary water resource issues that contribute to complexity of conflict beyond traditional interests such as allocation and navigation rights.In particular, it analyzes the economic implications of nutrient, land, and airshed management in an environment where the interaction of trans-boundary water resources with the ecological system is considered. Trans-boundary water usage and infrastructure are discussed in the context of privatization and political uncertainty. Part IV of the book examines economic solutions to trans-boundary water allocation including water markets, tradable water permits, contractual arrangements, and coordinated management. The interaction between ground and surface water and the interaction between desalinated, recycled, and fresh water is analyzed in the context of optimal water allocation. The book concludes with a critical discussion of the role and potential of the economics profession in contributing to conflict resolution and management of trans-boundary water resources. The strengths and weaknesses of economic analysis are discussed with special consideration of the modern tools of bargaining theory and game theory that go beyond economic efficiency in considering political realities.

Agricultural, natural resource, and environmental problems are becom ing increasingly interdependent. For example, soil erosion is largely determined by agricultural land use. Both water use and water con tamination depend on land use and technology choice in agriculture. In many areas, the fertilizers and pesticides used in agriculture are ma jor pollutants of ground and surface water, having adverse effects on drinking water and fisheries. Agricultural pollutants such as pesticides also produce adverse health effects for agricultural workers and the consuming public. On the other hand, the availability of water resources and the value of competing land uses influence agricultural production. Additionally, regional air quality problems may affect crops and global environmental trends may have long-term implica tions for farming. Agriculture, natural resources and environmental quality are all heavily regulated in the U. S., but they are done so by a vast array of competing or unrelated agencies within the U. S. Departments of Agriculture, Interior, and Commerce, the Environmental Protection Agency; and numerous state agencies. Considering the large number of bureaucratically remote public agencies involved and the pervasive in terdependencies between agriculture, natural resources and the environ ment, policies develop which are at best uncoordinated and at worst conflicting and counterproductive. These policies have become sources of controversy as different interest groups struggle to affect their im plementation, as different agencies have fought for administrative con trol and as legislative bodies have attempted to enact piecemeal changes."

This book presents the first thorough economic analysis of current agricultural biotechnology regulation. The contributors, most of whom are agricultural economists working either in universities or NGOs, address issues such as commercial pesticides, the costs of approving new products, liability, benefits, consumer acceptance, regulation and its impacts, transgenic crops, social welfare implications, and biosafety.

After all the research on agricultural risk to date, the treatment of risk in agricultural research is far from harmonious. Many competing risk models have been proposed. Some new methodologies are largely untested. Some of the leading empirical methodologies in agricultural economic research are poorly suited for problems with aggregate data where risk averse behavior is less likely to be important. This book is intended to (i) define the current state of the literature on agricultural risk research, (ii) provide a critical evaluation of economic risk research on agriculture to date and (iii) set a research agenda that will meet future needs and prospects. This type of research promises to become of increasing importance because agricultural policy in the United States and elsewhere has decidedly shifted from explicit income support objectives to risk-related motivations of helping farmers deal with risk. Beginning with the 1996 Farm Bill, the primary set of policy instruments from U.S. agriculture has shifted from target prices and set aside acreage to agricultural crop insurance. Because this book is intended to have specific implications for U.S. agricultural policy, it has a decidedly domestic scope, but clearly many of the issues have application abroad. For each of the papers and topics included in this volume, individuals have been selected to give the strongest and broadest possible treatment of each facet of the problem. The result is this comprehensive reference book on the economics of agricultural risk.