Conference Agenda

Agri-environmental-climate schemes (AECS) can improve the provision of environmental goods and services from agriculture by compensating farmers for either implementing environmentally friendly management practices or obtaining ecological results. We contribute to the ongoing discussion on the opportuniy cost of biodiversity provision under different agri-environmental contractual arrangements by comparing the technical and environmental efficiency of farms participating in result-based and action-based schemes using a two-output Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model. The case study focuses on the Federal State of Bavaria, Germany, where a pilot result-based grassland conservation scheme was implemented from 2015 to 2022. In contrast to previous research, we uniquely measure farm ecological performance using a farm-level biodiversity index to examine trade-offs between biodiversity provision and agricultural production. Our results indicate that there is potential to simultaneously improve both economic and biodiversity outcomes without the need for financial compensation. Farms participating in result-based schemes show slightly higher environmental efficiency scores and lower opportunity costs for providing additional grassland species compared to those in action-based schemes or no schemes. This finding underscores important implications for the design of agri-environmental policies. Further research should focus on developing more advanced and generalizable empirical models.

Organic and conventional farmers face the same pests but differ in technologies and economic incentives to control them. This paper theoretically and empirically characterizes the strategic interactions for pest control between these two types of farmers within mixed organic-conventional landscapes. Our non-cooperative game model shows that each farmer type is expected to strategically free-ride on the other's control efforts when managing a sufficiently small share of the landscape, and that the extent of free-riding theoretically increases for lower pest pressure, higher relative treatment costs, and lower treatment efficacy. Using exhaustive French postcode-level data on insecticide purchases against the vector of a vine disease (Flavescence dorée), we provide empirical support for all our theoretical propositions. Our preferred estimates indicate that organic farmers free-ride on conventional farmers' efforts until they reach about 8% of the landscape. Beyond this threshold, organic treatments only partially substitute for reduced conventional treatments, up to a point where conventional farmers may eventually free-ride if the organic landscape share becomes large enough. Consistent with the model's predictions, free-riding disappears under high pest pressure, while differences in relative treatment costs and treatment efficacy also affect its extent, though to a lesser degree.

This article examines how export fraud involving unlabeled products compromises the viability of labeled products on the domestic market when domestic consumers are imperfectly informed. We consider two market segments: a high-quality "green" product (G) and a low-quality "brown" product (B). We develop a multi-stage game where firms compete through prices on international and domestic markets, and low-quality producers choose the level of compliance and fraud. While international consumers value intrinsic environmental quality, the willingness to pay of domestic consumers is influenced by a collective reputation factor that deteriorates when fraudulent exports by domestic producers are detected. Our analysis reveals that the resulting decline in perceived quality intensifies domestic price competition, potentially leading to the erosion of the market share of high-quality goods in favour of lower-quality alternatives. This effect can be counteracted if the government promotes an intermediate national eco-label (M) whose perceived quality is less sensitive to reputation concerns, but possibly at the expense of the eco-labeled product.

Market-based approaches to land conservation have become more prevalent and increasingly varied in recent years. A long-running trend away from fee simple acquisitions toward conservation easements has recently given way to more temporary payments for ecosystem services (PES) contracts including ``habitat leases'' and other flexible arrangements. This paper analyses the choice among possible contracts facing a conservationist who wishes to purchase additional conservation on private working land. We consider three different contractual arrangements: fee-simple acquisition, conservation easements, and PES. Our baseline result is that it is never optimal for the conservationist to purchase the land because some combination of easements and PES can always achieve any given level of conservation at a lower cost than outright acquisition. However, ownership may dominate in the presence of significant monitoring costs, especially in cases where the conservationist wishes to substantially reduce input usage relative to the landowner's optimum. Our model also provides important insights about when permanent easements are worthwhile relative to engaging in repeated temporary PES schemes. We find that the probability of development does not affect the choice of whether to pursue an easement. Rather, the key determinants of the desirability of easements are the conservation damages from land development (the benefit of the easement) and the added value to the landowner of developing (the cost of the easement).