Income risk and water quality, damage abatement and pesticide productivity, and abating spatial externalities in agriculture
Scope and method of study. The body of this dissertation is composed of three separate essays. The first essay considers the importance of income risk in the formulation of groundwater protection policies. The primary goal of this research is to examine the link between income risk and the effective...
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| Format: | Dissertation |
| Language: | English |
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ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
01-01-1997
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| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Scope and method of study. The body of this dissertation is composed of three separate essays. The first essay considers the importance of income risk in the formulation of groundwater protection policies. The primary goal of this research is to examine the link between income risk and the effectiveness of these policies. Bio-physical simulation is used to develop yield, leaching, and run-off for common cropping activities. A safety-first model of income risk is combined with an environmental impact measure to account for both economic and environmental impacts. The second essay focuses on pesticide productivity in Upland cotton. A damage abatement specification is used with specific chemical data to derive marginal productivity estimates of chemical components for a sample of Texas upland cotton producers. The economic productivity of each component is examined. Essay three is an examination of environmental policies which consider the inherent spatial nature of agricultural production. The goal of this research is to examine the efficiency of spatially sensitive policies that control agricultural pollution. Biophysical simulation data and a discrete-time, stochastic dynamic-optimization model is used to compare the policies of land use permits and spatially differentiated taxes that target nitrogen leachate for a sub-watershed in Western Oklahoma. Findings and conclusions. For Essay I, fragility of results from model specification as well as the failure to consider income risk is developed. Fragility of policy conclusions varies between the policies. The use of a risk programming approach shows that input substitution may negate policy makers attempt to protect groundwater quality. For Essay II, marginal productivities for the insecticide components show that there are some insecticides which have a high marginal productivities, low unit costs, and low break even prices, whole others are not economically feasible. Most herbicides had negative marginal productivities. For Essay III, results show that policies which do not consider spatial differences in agricultural production cannot be as efficient as those which are spatially sensitive. The spatially differentiated tax policy was found to be the most efficient at meeting a 10 lb. per acre nitrogen leachate standard. |
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| ISBN: | 9780591566444 0591566443 |