Stop and Go Agricultural Policies with a Land Market
研究在农民生产率信息不对称、政府保障最低收入、地租内生且替代用途收益递减时，最优农场政策的设计。发现休耕从不最优，但补偿性面积限制可行；对新进入者，最优政策是自愿面积买断计划，高成本生产者参与而低成本者不参与。
Abstract This article studies the design of farm policy in the presence of asymmetric information about farmers' productivity, a government objective to insure farmers a minimum “parity” income, an endogenous land rent, and diminishing returns on alternative (nonprogram crop) land uses. In this setting, acreage set asides are never part of an optimal farm policy, although compensated acreage limits are. When there are new farmer entrants who cannot be excluded from farm programs, optimal policy takes the form of a pure voluntary acreage limitation—or “buyout”—program in which high‐cost producers participate and low‐cost producers do not.