Abstract We develop an empirical framework for evaluating the profitability of the use of barn owls to control rodent populations by locating nesting boxes in agricultural areas. Barn owls’ behavior is incorporated into the analysis by estimated functions that relate agricultural production to...

We develop an empirical farmland allocation model based on explicit profit functions that is linked to a market demand model. The model accounts for corner solutions, enabling estimation with disaggregated data, and thereby allows treating prices as exogenous. The integrated model enables...

We evaluate participation in the Conservation Reserve Program and its relationship with time allocation and farm structure. We do not find a statistically significant link between enrollment of acreage in the CRP program and off-farm work effort. We do find important linkages among time...

Global Climate Change (GCC) can bring about changes in ecosystems and consequently in their services value. Here we show that the urban population in Israel values the green landscape of rangelands in the mesic Mediterranean climate region and is willing to pay for preserving it in light of the...

Under risk of catastrophic climate change, the occurrence hazard is added to the social discount rate. As a result, the social discount rate (i) increases and (ii) turns endogenous to the global warming policy. The second effect bears profound policy implications that are magnifed by economic...

A constant social discount rate cannot reflect both a reasonable opportunity cost of public funds and an ethically defensible concern for generations in the distant future. We use a model of hyperbolic discounting that achieves both goals. We imbed this discounting model in a simple climate...

Low probability catastrophic climate change can have a signifcant influence on policy under hyperbolic discounting. We compare the set of Markov Perfect Equilibria (MPE) to the optimal policy under time-consistent commitment. For some initial levels of risk there are multiple MPE; these may...

Environmental consequences of natural resource exploitation often entail threats of future occurrences of detrimental abrupt events rather than (or in addition to) inflicting a damage gradually. The possibility of abrupt occurrence of climate-change related calamities is a case in mind. The...

We study optimal adaptation to climate change when the harmful consequences of global warming are associated with stochastic occurrence of abrupt changes. The adaptation policy entails the accumulation of a particular sort of capital that will eliminate or reduce the catastrophic damage of an...

Welfare measures under threats of environmental catastrophes are studied using the "parable" apparatus of Weitzman and Lofgren [22]. The occurrence probability of the catastrophic event is driven (at least partly) by anthropogenic activities such as natural resource exploitation. Without...