Conservation programmes in the US have emphasised retirement of land from crop production as a mechanism for achieving multiple environmental benefits. Several features of these programmes, such as their eligibility criteria, participation incentives and length of contract, influence the...

When natural resource damages are caused by releases of hazardous materials into the environment, government trustees must conduct Natural Resource Damage Assessments (NRDAs) to support claims to recover the value of lost or damaged resources. This article sets forth theoretical arguments that...

A general equilibrium approach is used to evaluate the welfare impacts of alternative policies for reducing agricultural pollution in an open economy with preexisting distortions caused by income taxes and agricultural subsidies. The policies examined here include the removal of distortionary...

This paper uses stylized analytical and numerical general equilibrium models to evaluate the welfare impacts of alternative policies for reducing nitrogen run-off from agricultural production in an open economy while recognizing the presence of distortionary agricultural support subsidies and...

Becker (1983) hypothesized that interest groups compete strategically for influence with policy makers; that important model has been assumed or ignored rather than tested. This paper builds theoretical and econometric frameworks that can test hypotheses about strategic behavior when data on...

Many of the biggest environmental policies are federal: the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and so forth. Yet those federal laws leave important niches to be filled by state authorities; there are areas of environmental policy in which state governments can and should take the lead. Some...

Research related to the Endangered Species Act tends to take the presence of that policy as given and focus on issues of implementation and effects. This paper seeks to reconsider U.S. conservation policy entirely. The ESA does not protect species or ecosystems that are not endangered, and...