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NEP: New Economics Papers
Agricultural Economics
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Edited by: Angelo Zago
Universita degli Studi di Verona
Date: 2005-04-03
Papers: 4
This document is in the public domain, feel free to circulate it.
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In this issue we have:
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1. Designation of Co-benefits and Its Implication for Policy:
Water Quality versus Carbon Sequestration in Agricultural
Soils, The
Secchi, Silvia; Jha, Manoj; Kurkalova, Lyubov; Feng, HongLi;
Gassman, Philip W.; Kling, Catherine L.
2. Consequences of Co-benefits for the Efficient Design of
Carbon Sequestration Programs, The
Feng, HongLi; Kling, Catherine L.
3. Rural Windfall or a New Resource Curse? Coca, Income, and
Civil Conflict in Colombia
Joshua D. Angrist; Adriana Kugler
4. Time on the Ladder: Career Mobility in Agriculture, 1890-1938
Lee J. Alston; Joseph P. Ferrie
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1. Designation of Co-benefits and Its Implication for Policy:
Water Quality versus Carbon Sequestration in Agricultural
Soils, The
Secchi, Silvia
Jha, Manoj
Kurkalova, Lyubov
Feng, HongLi
Gassman, Philip W.
Kling, Catherine L.
This study investigates the implications of treating different
environmental benefits as the primary target of policy design. We
focus on two scenarios, estimating for both of them in-stream
sediment, nutrient loadings, and carbon sequestration. In the
first, we assess the impact of a program designed to improve
water quality in Iowa on carbon sequestration, and in the second,
we calculate the water quality impact of a program aimed at
maximizing carbon sequestration. In both cases, the policy
instrument is the retirement of land from agricultural production.
Our results, limited to the state of Iowa, and to the case of
set-aside for water quality or carbon sequestration purposes,
indicate that the amount of co-benefits depends on what
indicators are used to measure water quality. In general, this
study shows that improving ?water quality? in the sense of
reducing nutrient or sediment loadings is too vague. Even if it
is taken to refer to in-stream nutrients, because the responses
of nitrogen and phosphorus to conservation efforts are not well
correlated, this terminology may not provide much guidance.
Date: 2005-03-23
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:12264&r=agr
2. Consequences of Co-benefits for the Efficient Design of
Carbon Sequestration Programs, The
Feng, HongLi
Kling, Catherine L.
In this paper, we study the social efficiency of private carbon
markets that include trading in agricultural soil carbon
sequestration when there are significant co-benefits (positive
environmental externalities) associated with the practices that
sequester carbon. Likewise, we investigate the efficiency of
government-run conservation programs that are designed to promote
a broad array of environmental attributes (both carbon
sequestration and its co-benefits) for the supply of carbon.
Finally, policy design and efficiency issues associated with the
potential interplay between a private carbon market and a
government conservation program are studied. Empirical analyses
for an area that represents a significant potential source of
carbon sequestration and its associated co-benefits illustrate
the magnitude and complexity of these issues in real-world policy
design.
Date: 2005-03-29
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:12269&r=agr
3. Rural Windfall or a New Resource Curse? Coca, Income, and
Civil Conflict in Colombia
Joshua D. Angrist
Adriana Kugler
Natural and agricultural resources for which there is a
substantial black market, such as coca, opium, and diamonds,
appear especially likely to be exploited by the parties to a
civil conflict. On the other hand, these resources may also
provide one of the few reliable sources of income in the
countryside. In this paper, we study the economic and social
consequences of a major shift in the production of coca paste
from Peru and Bolivia to Colombia, where most coca leaf is now
harvested. This shift, which arose in response to the disruption
of the "air bridge" that previously ferried coca paste into
Colombia, provided an exogenous boost in the demand for Colombian
coca leaf. Our analysis shows this shift generated economic gains
in rural areas, primarily in the form of increased self-
employment earnings and increased labor supply by teenage boys.
There is little evidence of widespread economic spillovers,
however. The results also suggest that the rural areas which saw
accelerated coca production subsequently became much more violent.
Taken together, these findings support the view that the
Colombian civil conflict is fueled by the financial opportunities
that coca provides. This is in line with a recent literature
which attributes the extension of civil conflicts to economic
rewards and an environment that favors insurgency more than to
the persistence of economic or political grievances.
JEL: O1 R0 Q0
Date: 2005-03
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11219&r=agr
4. Time on the Ladder: Career Mobility in Agriculture, 1890-1938
Lee J. Alston
Joseph P. Ferrie
We explore the dynamics of the agricultural ladder (the
progression from laborer to cropper to renter) in the U.S. before
1940 using individual-level data from a survey of farmers
conducted in 1938 in Jefferson County, Arkansas. Using
information on each individual%u2019s complete career history (
their tenure status at each date, in some cases as far back as
1890), their location, and a variety of their personal and farm
characteristics, we develop and test hypotheses to explain the
time spent as a tenant, sharecropper, and wage laborer. The
pessimistic view of commentators who saw sharecropping and
tenancy as a trap has some merit, but individual characteristics
played an important role in mobility. In all periods, some
farmers moved up the agricultural ladder quite rapidly while
others remained stuck on a rung. Ascending the ladder was an
important route to upward mobility, particularly for blacks,
before large-scale migration from rural to urban places.
JEL: N3 N5 J6
Date: 2005-03
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11231&r=agr
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