Mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from the cattle sector: Land‐use regulation as an alternative to emissions pricing
研究通过补贴养牛户退耕还林来减少温室气体排放，并与肉类税和饲养标准比较，发现补贴在法国情境下效率更优，但需注意碳泄漏风险。
Abstract Reducing animal‐based food production would not only reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions but also free land that could sequester carbon. We examine the efficiency of a subsidy to cattle farmers for setting aside land for natural ecosystem regeneration. We develop a partial equilibrium model of the cattle sector that integrates land use, greenhouse gas emissions, and animal feeding. We compare the subsidy to alternative policies: a meat tax and a standard on animal feeding. We identify the conditions under which the subsidy is the best alternative to these other second‐best policies. The efficiency of the subsidy lies in its effects on both the extensive margin (reduced quantity of meat) and the intensive margin (production intensification, which reduces both the emission and land‐use intensities of meat). An empirical application to France, where spontaneous regeneration corresponds mostly to forest regrowth, shows that the subsidy dominates the other alternative policies considered for a wide range of parameter values but is sensitive to carbon leakage when the economy is open to trade.