From Microlevel Decisions to Landscape Changes: An Assessment of Agricultural Conservation Policies
构建了一个经验模型，预测不同保护政策下密西西比河上游流域超过42,000个农业地点的农民生产实践和农业径流变化，发现保护性耕作和轮作补贴虽能增加采用率，但面积响应缺乏弹性，单独实施难以经济有效地解决墨西哥湾缺氧问题。
The growth in conservation programs has created a need for modeling frameworks capable of measuring microlevel behavioral responses and macrolevel landscape changes. This paper presents an empirical model that predicts farmers' production practices and the resulting levels of agricultural runoffs at more than 42,000 agricultural sites in the upper‐Mississippi river basin under alternative conservation policies. Results suggest that payments for conservation tillage and crop rotations increase the use of these conservation practices. However, the acreage response is inelastic and the programs are not likely to be cost effective on their own for addressing hypoxia problem in the Gulf of Mexico.