In this paper we propose a scheme to control non-point source water pollution that employs subsidies to foster voluntary cooperation among farmers and, in that respect, is aligned with the traditional reliance in US water quality policy on voluntary programs aimed at persuading farmers to use...

The tobacco buyout program affected a number of southern states, including Kentucky, providing a unique opportunity to study how individuals actually make choices involving large sums of money. This natural experiment, allowed us to measure the personal discount rates for Kentucky tobacco...

Prior research suggests that in an urban setting the share of women in total entrepreneurial activity still lags behind the share of women in the labor force, and that female entrepreneurship may be influenced by different factors than male entrepreneurship. This paper investigates whether males...

The paper analyzes exit decision by tobacco farmers in the wake of tobacco buyout program in Kentucky. A data set collected through surveying Kentucky tobacco farmers is used to estimate a logit model representing the probability of exit as a function of farm-specific characteristics. The...

There are many expenditure options available to farmers who received a tobacco buyout check. We used a multinomial probit model to analyze how farmer, business, and household characteristics influenced the choice of expenditure option. We found that farmers tend to use the tobacco buyout...

There are three kinds of decision making environments with less than perfect information about the outcome of a decision that vary in the extent to which the information available to decision makers is imperfect. A decision making setting is defined as risky when both the possible outcomes, and...

This paper reports the results of laboratory test of the performance of a non-point source (NPS) water pollution abatement scheme suggested by Pushkarskaya and Randall (2006). The scheme is based on voluntary participation in the non-point source pollution control program, and ties individual...

The goal of this experimental study was to test an effectiveness of a group contract designed to control nonpoint source water pollution from farms' runoff (Pushkarskaya 2003). In particular, the regulator pays for pollution reduction credits earned by the group of the farmers, who voluntary...