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Abstract: Key features of U.S. agri-environmental programs are reviewed and analyzed using literature review and program data. We focus, in particular, on several key questions: Has benefit–cost targeting increased the environmental benefit obtained from program budgets? Has competitive bidding reduced program costs? To what extent have these program designs resulted in additional gain (that would not have otherwise been obtained)? Previous research illustrates how benefit–cost targeting using environmental indices (such as the Environmental Benefits Index in the Conservation Reserve Program) can increase environmental cost-effectiveness. Previous research and data from two U.S. programs suggests that bidding has reduced costs, but that the full potential of bidding may not have been realized. Finally, most U.S. programs are intended to yield environmental gains that would not have otherwise been obtained, but sometimes fall short of this goal. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Policy makers have responded to concerns over declining levels of biodiversity by introducing a range of policy measures including agri-environment and wildlife management schemes. Costs for such measures are relatively easy to establish, but benefits are less easily estimated. Economics can help guide the design of biodiversity policy by eliciting public preferences on different attributes of biodiversity. However, this is complicated by the generally low level of awareness and understanding of what biodiversity means on the part of the general public. In this paper we report research that applied the choice experiment and contingent valuation methods to value the diversity of biological diversity. Focus groups were used to identify ecological concepts of biodiversity that were important and relevant to the public, and to discover how best to describe these concepts in a meaningful and understandable manner. A choice experiment examined a range of biodiversity attributes including familiarity of species, species rarity, habitat, and ecosystem processes, while a contingent valuation study examined public willingness to pay for biodiversity enhancements associated with agri-environmental and habitat re-creation policy. The key conclusions drawn from the valuation studies were that the public has positive valuation preferences for most, but not all, aspects of biodiversity, but that they appeared to be largely indifferent to how biodiversity protection was achieved. Finally, we also investigate the extent to which valuation workshop approaches to data collection can overcome some of the possible information problems associated with the valuation of complex goods. The key conclusion was that the additional opportunities for information exchange and group discussion in the workshops helped to reduce the variability of value estimates. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In an original extension of contingent valuation methodology (CVM), support for a proposed environmental regulation is examined under three alternative polluter-pay specifications. Using a statewide random telephone sample of Washington State''s electorate, one scenario asks respondents for their support absent any CV price and absent any information regarding what producers will pay. A second scenario asks willingness to pay (WTP) providing only a CV price but no polluter-pay information. A third scenario asks respondents for their support giving both a CV price and a percentage of total costs producers will pay. Extending the CV methodology, this percentage varies randomly between respondents. Absent any price or firm cost sharing information, some respondents assume producers are absorbing the costs. Providing a CV price reverses this assumption, and reduces support even after controlling for price. When the CV price is given along with the percentage, WTP increases the larger the percentage. Within each scenario support also varies according to whether the type of industry being regulated is small and competitive, or monopolistic. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper is about how institutions determine choices and the importance of this for environmental policy. The model of individual rational choice from neoclassical economics is compared with the model of socially determined behavior. While in the first case, institutions are either exempted from or understood as mere economizing constraints on behavior, the latter perspective views institutions as basic structures necessary also to enable people to act. The paper develops a way to integrate the individualistic model into the wider perspective of social constructivism by viewing it as a special form of such construction. On the basis of this synthesis three issues with relevance for environmental economics are discussed. First, the role of institutional factors in the process of preference formation is emphasized. Next, the role of institutions for the choice of desired states of the environment is analyzed. Finally, the effect of various policy instruments to motivate people to produce these states is discussed. It is concluded that the core policy issue is to determine which institutional frameworks are most reasonable to apply to which kind of problem. Issues, which from the perspective of neoclassical economics are pure technical, become serious value questions if understood from an institutional perspective. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]