Public and private electric utilities are considering co-firing biomass with coal as a strategy to reduce the levels of CO2, SO2 and NOx in stack emissions, as well as a response to state legislative mandates requiring the use of renewable fuels. This analysis examines the conditions under which biomass co-firing is economically feasible for utilities and woody biomass producers and describes additional environmental and community benefits associated with biomass use. This paper presents a case study of woody biomass production and co-firing at the Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO) Michigan City Unit No. 12 power plant. A Salix (willow) production budget was created to assess the feasibility of plantation tree production to supply biomass to the utility for fuel blending. A GAMS model was developed to examine the optimal co-firing blend of coal and biomass while minimizing variable cost, including the cost of ash disposal and material procurement costs. The model is constrained by the levels of pollution produced. This model is used to examine situations where coal is the primary fuel and waste wood, willow trees, or both are available for fuel blending. Capital costs for co-firing were estimated outside of the model and are incorporated into the total cost of co-firing. The results indicate that under certain circumstances it is cost-effective for the power plant to co-fire biomass. Sensitivity analysis is used to test biomass price sensitivity and explores the effects of potential public policies on co-firing.

Constraints on production economic research are examined in three dimensions: problem focus, methodology, and data availability. Data availability has played a large role in the choice of problem focus and explains some misdirected focus. A proprosal is made to address the data availability constraint. The greatest self-imposed constraints are methodological. Production economics has focused on flexible representations of technology at the expense of specificity in preferences. Yet some of the major problems faced by decision makers relate to long-term problems, e.g., the commodity boom and ensuing debt crisis of the 1970s and 1980s where standard short-term profit maximization models are unlikely to capture the essence of decision maker concerns.

Northeast Dairy Compact impacts were estimated for Boston and Hartford retail prices using an econometric model. Asymmetric speeds of adjustment to farm price increases and decreases were found; however, tests indicated that retail prices do return to the same level following equal farm price increases and decreases. Model forecasts suggested no structural changes occurred during the out-of-sample period, July 1996 through June 1998. Simulations with and without the Compact predicted lower retail fluid milk price impacts than actual July 1997 changes. These predicted impacts separate the effects of farm price changes on retail prices from possibly confounding effects.

U.S. county-level net migration data and a general spatial model are used to examine the effects of various amenities on migration decisions. Results suggest that higher county cancer risks and the presence of superfund sites in a county, or a higher ranking on the Environmental Protection Agency's hazard ranking system, reduce the relative attractiveness of a county to prospective migrants, while natural amenities on balance attract migrants, ceteris paribus. The results also reveal spatial dependence among contiguous counties in terms of net migration behavior.

This study identifies clusters of certified organic operations in the United States and determines the form of spatial autocorrelation present in the operations’ distribution. We identify large hot spots of organic operations along the West Coast and in the Midwest and Northeast with some variation based on how we define an organic operation. Further analyses suggest that organic operations do not necessarily follow the same geographic patterns as nonorganic agricultural and general business establishments. Spatial autoregressive models confirm the presence of significant spatial dependence in the distribution of certified organic operations for a number of different definitions of an organic operation.

As the proportion of farm family income due to nonfarm sources continues to grow nationally, it is important to understand how farm families in various regions or states are affected. This paper develops a better understanding of the contribution of income from nonfarm sources to the level and distribution of income among farm families in New York. In analyzing income distribution, the Gini ratio is decomposed to determine the effects of marginal changes in income by source to overall inequality. The results are compared with the simulated changes in income inequality due to changes in income by source as measured by an “adjusted” Gini ratio which accounts specifically for negative farm incomes. Differences in the policy implications from both procedures are compared. The relationships among sources of income and policy implications can be brought into sharper focus by examining both measures.

Restructuring of electric power markets is proceeding across the United States and in many other nations around the world. The performance of these markets will influence everything from the prices faced by consumers to the reliability of the systems. The challenges of these changes present many important areas for research. For much of the northeastern United States, restructuring proposals include, at least for the short term, the formation of a single-sided auction mechanism for the wholesale market. This research uses experimental methods to analyze how these markets may function. In the experiments, the two basic uniform price auction rules are tested under three different market sizes. Early experimental results suggest the commonly proposed last-accepted-offer auction works well, but market power could be a real concern.

Competing risks survival analysis is used to investigate tax and zoning policy impacts on residential, commercial, and industrial development timing in a rapidly growing Midwestern county. Industrial development appears both to precede and occur concurrently with residential development, while commercial development follows other types. Although residences appear to locate away from industrial land, zoning decisions favoring industry may attract rather than deter residential development within a jurisdiction. Regions with higher infrastructure taxes experience development later. Because school taxes fund local public goods important to homeowners, they have little influence on residential timing, but strong influences on industrial and commercial timing.

This paper presents a bioeconomic model of a commercial fishery facing biological invasion by an alien species acting as a space competitor for the native species. The model is illustrated in a case study of the common scallop fishery of the Bay of St-Brieuc (France), where biological invasion by a slipper-limpet (Crepidula fornicata) is now addressed by a control program. First we present the model, which combines the dynamics of the two competing stocks. We then use the model to analyze the equilibrium of the fishery under various assumptions concerning invasive species control, and to assess the social cost of the invasion. Finally we propose a set of dynamic simulations concerning the ongoing program, emphasizing the influence of its starting date on its overall economic results.

This paper explores the role of managerial ability in determining efficiency in New York dairy farms. Using an unbalanced panel of farm data from 1993 through 2004, we estimate outputoriented technical efficiencies using stochastic distance frontier functions. We find that both lagged net farm income and farmers’ own estimates of the value of their labor and management as proxies for managerial ability impact measured efficiency. Efficiency increases with operator education, farm size, and extended participation in a farm management program, but decreases with operator age.

This study presents evidence that contracting is positively associated with the scale of production for six major U.S. agricultural commodities. Specifically, contract producers tend to operate at a larger scale than do independent producers, and the likelihood of an operation contracting increases with its scale. This relationship is strongest in the cattle and hog sectors, where it persists even among large commercial operations. Six theoretical explanations for the observed correlation between scale and contracting are proposed, including imperfect capital markets, contractor transaction costs, input leverage, grower risk aversion, asset specificity, and technological change. Information from five annual national surveys is used to examine the validity of three of the proposed mechanisms.

Potatoes have been grown continuously on many Long Island (New York) fields. Environmental concerns have raised questions about the continued usage of this practice. A farm-level linear programming model was used to investigate the economic impacts of crop rotations which result in reduced potato acreage. Crop rotations (an Integrated Pest Management tactic) reduced total pesticide use, but also reduced returns above variable costs as successively stringent rotation requirements were forced into the solution. The crop rotations which caused the least effect on income were identified.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the largest nutritional assistance program addressing food insecurity in the United States. Due to the program's reach, SNAP has been called upon to address other nutrition-related challenges facing low-income Americans, including childhood obesity. This study considers the effect of SNAP participation on child weight outcomes after controlling for household financial stress, an important determinant of child overweight status that disproportionately affects low-income households. Using data from the Survey of Household Finances and Childhood Obesity and instrumental variable methods, we find that SNAP participation is negatively associated with obesity among eligible children.

A provision of the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 requires country of origin labeling (COOL) for certain agricultural commodities. To comply with the law, producers, processors, and retailers face additional production costs associated with labeling, separating, and tracking commodities. Using estimated costs provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), we simulate the impacts of mandatory COOL on U.S. and global agricultural markets using a global static general equilibrium model (STAGEM). The results show resource adjustments that lead to decreases in production, consumption, and trade flows. The results assume no demand premium for labeled commodities relative to unlabeled commodities.

Environmental economists invest in measuring the value of the environment but put less effort toward integrating that value directly into the economy. Experimental economists evaluate the performance of mechanisms to fund public goods but in some cases offer limited insight into practical implications for developing markets. This discussion presents initial insights into applying mechanisms for private provision of public goods based on demand-side values rather than regulatory-based market incentives such as cap-and-trade policies. Consideration of mechanisms to generate revenue inspires field tests that could direct experiments using threshold public goods and Lindahl's framework toward applications that transform value into revenue.

The provision point mechanism mitigates free-riding behavior in economic experiments. In two contingent valuation method surveys, we implement the provision point design. We ask respondents for their perceptions about the success of the provision point mechanism. We find that respondents who believe that the provision point would not be met are more likely to say no to a contingent valuation dichotomous choice question. The scenario rejection that arises may result in biased willingness-to-pay estimates.

“Buying local״ has become one of the most important trends in food marketing. Despite widespread public attention, the influence of the “local״ attribute on food prices is not well understood. We aim to begin to fill this gap in research by exploring the presence of a price premium for “local״ in actual market transactions. Using scanner data on fresh packaged lettuce in the Honolulu market and hedonic modeling, we investigate consumers’ revealed preferences for the attribute. Contrary to the positive willingness to pay for local food widely reported in previous studies, we find no local premium for fresh lettuce in the Honolulu market.

This paper examines the factors influencing farmer participation in crop insurance schemes, but unlike previous studies that focus on total demand, participation is disaggregated into entrants and those exiting. Modeling entry and exit decisions separately illustrates that the effect of a given variable is often muted by aggregation. In addition, the approach in this paper distinguishes between price and yield variables rather than total returns and is consequently able to demonstrate that price variables are particularly important for farmers considering enrolling in crop insurance, while yield variables and other risk management opportunities are more important for farmers who have been in the program but are deciding to exit. The result suggests that moral hazard is reduced significantly by calculating the coverage yield level for an individual producer on the basis of a moving average of past yields for that farmer. While yield and its variance are particularly influential in the participation decision for farmers currently enrolled, its significant impact on the insurance decision for all farmers highlights the importance of crop insurance as a potential adaptation strategy to weather events.

This paper explores the emerging concept of place-based economic policy. It reviews recent literature on place-based economics policy, especially regional competitiveness policy, and explores the adoption and diffusion of this concept by economic development practitioners and social science researchers. It attempts to answer the question: Are place-based economic policy and the underlying conceptual foundations lasting innovations, or are they fads which economic development practitioners and social scientists will adopt until another fad emerges? The conclusion is that economic development practitioners and social scientists do tend to respond to fads. To ensure that regional economic development policy is not dominated by fads, social scientists must get out in front of economic development practitioners far enough to thoroughly develop and test regional competitiveness and other place-based economic theories.

Lifestyle landowners value land for its amenities and ecological characteristics and could play an important role in managing and conserving native vegetation in multifunctional rural landscapes. We quantify values of ecosystem services captured by owners of rural lifestyle properties in Victoria, Australia, using a spatial hedonic property price model. The value of ecosystem services provided by native vegetation is maximized when that vegetation occupies about 40 percent of the area of a lifestyle property. Since the current median proportion of native vegetation is 15 percent, most lifestyle landowners could benefit from increasing the area of native vegetation on their properties.