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Abstract: Recently, a novel approach (to be referred to as CEU) was introduced for the frequently arising problem of combining the conflicting criteria of equity and utilitarianism. This paper provides additional insights into CEU and assesses its added value for practice by comparing it with a commonly used extended goal programming (EGP) approach. The comparison comprises the way of balancing equity and utilitarianism, the number and spacing of solutions, discrete versus continuous nature, method‐specific parameters, distance to the Pareto front, and computational effort. CEU balances between equity and utilitarianism in a way that is basically different from using a convex combination of these two criteria. Moreover, CEU's parameter has an intuitive interpretation. The set of solutions generated by CEU is smaller and more widely spaced than EGP's set of solutions, which can be an advantage for the decision maker. CEU generates solutions on the Pareto front of the decision maker's n‐criteria problem. However, CEU's way of balancing equity and utilitarianism causes a (small) distance to the Pareto front of the associated bicriteria problem on the aggregate criteria. Reporting this distance will support the decision maker to assess whether the achieved balance is worth its price. Using CEU may require a larger computational effort than using EGP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using linear programming in bio-economic farm modelling often results in overspecialised model solutions. The positive mathematical programming (PMP) approach guarantees exact calibration to base year data but the forecasting capacity of the model is affected by necessary but arbitrary assumptions imposed during calibration. In this article, a new PMP variant is presented which is based on less arbitrary assumptions that, from a theoretical point of view, are closer to the actual decision making of the farmer. The PMP variant is evaluated according to the predictions of the bio-economic farm model, developed within the framework for integrated assessment of agricultural systems in Europe (SEAMLESS). The forecasting capacity of the model calibrated with the standard PMP approach and the alternative PMP variant, respectively, is tested in ex-post experiments for the arable farm types of Flevoland (the Netherlands) and Midi-Pyrenees (France). The results of the ex-post experiments, in which we try to simulate farm responses in 2003 using a model calibrated to 1999 data, show that the alternative PMP variant improves the forecasting capacity of the model in all tested cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]