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...

Life cycle analysis (LCA) is the standard approach used to evaluate the greenhouse gas (GHG) benefits of biofuels. However, it is increasingly recognized that LCA results do not account for some impacts including land use changes that have important implications on GHGs. Thus, an alternative...

When nonpoint source pollution is stochastic and the damage function is convex, intuition might suggest it is more important to control a nonpoint pollution source than a point source. Earlier research has provided sufficient conditions such that the permit price for a unit of ex-ante expected...

A watershed based model, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), along with transfer coefficients is used to assess alternative principles of allocating nutrient load reduction in the Raccoon River watershed in central Iowa. Four principles are examined for their cost-effectiveness and...

We develop a dynamic model to investigate the optimal time paths of carbon emissions, sequestration, and the carbon stock. We show that carbon sinks should be utilized as early as possible, and carbon flow into sinks should last until the atmospheric carbon concentration is stabilized. We rule...

We build a real option model that articulates sodbusting incentives arising from risk interventions in the presence of conversion costs. The model shows that risk interventions reduce expected costs of switching land use between cropping and noncropping activities and, hence, incentivize...

Rate setting procedures for United States crop yield and revenue insurance contracts employ methods that presume correlations to be state invariant. Whether this is true matters. If yield-yield correlations strengthen when crops are subject to widespread stress, then diversification...

We develop a real option model of the irreversible native grassland conversion decision. Upon plowing, native grassland can be followed by either a permanent cropping system or a system in which land is put under cropping (respectively, grazing) whenever crop prices are high (respectively, low)....