EX-ANTE EVALUATION OF AGRI-ENVIRONMENTAL SCHEMES: COMBINING ELEMENTS OF PRIVATE AND PUBLIC DECISION MAKING

The objective of this paper is to set a complete ex-ante evaluation to support Decision Makers in designingmore efficient and effective agri-environmental contracts, through an integrated modelling of elements ofprivate and public decision making. Ex-ante comparison of policy design options in terms of overalleffectiveness requires both simulations of farmers' behaviour and evaluation of the farms simulationsoutcomes. An intermediate step is the aggregation of single farms impacts at territorial level, in order toidentify the aggregate impact of each alternative. Alternatives are several contract design, based on differentlevels of payments. Farm level analysis is based on a real options approach including in the simulations thetiming of choice and the uncertainty in the future about price and decoupled payments. Aggregate policyimpact is identified through the quantification of economic, social and environmental impacts at territoriallevel and the weights are elicited with Multiple-Criteria Robust Interactive Decision Analysis (MCRID).Simulations in the case study show that relevant opportunities to improve policy design are available.Multicriteria Analysis is then used to aggregate impacts of many criteria, including not only effects on theenvironment, but also economic and social impacts.