The role of agri-environmental programs has taken on increased importance in the current Farm Bill debate with an eighty percent increase in Title II funding. However, little empirical evidence exists on the tradeoffs between economic costs and environmental benefits of new agri-environmental...

This report estimates the impact that high levels of enrollment in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) have had on economic trends in rural counties since the program's inception in 1985 until today. The results of a growth model and quasi-experimental control group analysis indicate no...

This report examines evidence on the relationship between agricultural land-use changes, soil productivity, and indicators of environmental sensitivity. If cropland that shifts in and out of production is less productive and more environmentally sensitive than other cropland, policy-induced...

In this paper we examine the issue of permanence in the context of sequestering carbon through afforestation. We develop a dynamic nested optimal control model of carbon sequestration associated with the decision to afforest a tract of land given there are uncertainties associated with fire and...