Quality of the environment is measured and evaluated by some criteria, such as composition, and by performance. However, quality, in terms of composition and/or performance, as a factor in environment has no meaning except as it relates to some use of the environment and scale of health, happiness and aspirations of man. For example, an environment is regarded as having a lower quality than 15 years ago because of an increase in the phosphorus contained in surface water and/or a change in the species of fish present in surface waters. In terms of performance, a particular environment (watershed) is not producing enough because the soil and phosphorus losses are twice the acceptable rate. Furthermore, the composition and performance of an environment are related. Measurement of the nitrogen and phosphorus content of water helps to determine if a given water resource can be used (perform) in a particular way.

A five-year linear programming farm planning model, permitting the inclusion of nitrogen decay rates, was constructed to include the use of sewage sludge as a primary crop nutrient source. Twenty-two scenarios depicting various operating conditions were examined and maximized net farm incomes compared.

Although only a small percentage difference resulted between the highest and the lowest net revenues over the five-year period, given a variety of operating circumstances, those scenarios including the use of sludge yielded the highest net incomes. Nitrogen application restrictions were at their upper limits when sludge use was included in the optimal solution. The calculation of net present values, for the two sludge contents considered, provided value estimates compatible with the linear programming solutions.

The inshore lobster fishery is one of the more important ones in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, accounting for approximately 14 percent of the total landed value of all species in Massachusetts in 1971. Until recent years this fishery accounted for virtually all the pot landings in the state. Despite numerous attempts at conservation such as gear regulation, size restrictions, and prohibitions on harvesting egg-bearing females, the fishery has been subject to rapidly increasing effort and virtually constant landings. In the past decade it has become obvious to many fishery biologists and economists that conservation of fish stocks is a necessary but not sufficient criterion for fisheries management. Resource managers have become increasingly aware of the interdependence between economic factors and the intensity, location and composition of fishing effort.

Two topics dominate discussions of public elementary and secondary education. The first is declining enrollments and the second is fiscal problems, especially those problems associated with such catch words as equity, taxpayer revolt, and tax reform. In this paper, we analyze the relationship between these two topics by examining enrollment change and fiscal characteristics in 504 Pennsylvania school districts. Our purpose is to provide a descriptive base for further research on the fiscal problems raised by changing school enrollments.

Not too long ago, most decisions were made by men. Using the brain was considered “unfeminine,” and it was a rare woman who was acquainted with the intricacies of financial planning. Today, things are changing as more and more women realize that prudent action in money matters can mean the difference between a comfortable future and “just getting by.”

One option for the disposal of sewage sludge is land spreading, including application to private croplands. Land spreading may allow some of the sewage treatment costs to the municipality or county to be offset by farmers’ payments for sludge as a crop producing resource. This study investigates the conditions under which a market for sludge will emerge. A linear programming model of a profit maximizing corn for gain farm is formulated and the quantity of sludge available is parametrically varied to trace out marginal productivity curves under various situations. The results for Anne Arundel county, Maryland sludge show a range in value from 0–35 $/ton at application rates from 0–20 tons/acre/year for three years.

I found this paper to be quite interesting and thought provoking, which is the norm when Allan Schmid is involved. For years, he has provided our discipline with considerable intellectual stimulation. There is a lot of “meat” in the paper, and I will not be able to address all of it in the limited space. What I would like to do is (a) put this issue in the context I use in a graduate class to show where I think social capital fits in the standard economic concepts, and (b) emphasize some of Schmid's points.

A long sustained belief that undeveloped natural resources constitute unproductive economic waste has recently been losing ground. Moreover, preserving a natural resource such as wetlands is not preserving something unproductive. On the contrary, the resource can often be considered as socially and economically productive in its undeveloped form. In other words, an unaltered natural resource has the potential of being productive in both material and non-material ways. In making a decision about preservation the relevant point is the social productivity of a resource in its preserved condition as compared to its social productivity in an altered condition.

The current issues of landfill bans, groundwater contamination, waste-end taxes and source reduction of hazardous wastes have rekindled interest in a systems view of environmental management. While this recent interest is new, the basic concept is not. The physical Law of Conservation of Mass as embodied in materials or mass balance has underlain most residuals management research (e.g. Ayres and Kneese [1969]; Kneese and Bower [1979]). As society grapples with the complex problem of toxic and hazardous chemical residues and their distribution in the environment, mass balance is receiving renewed attention in the form of cross-media transfers. The focus of this renewed interest is the movement and transformation of residuals among environmental media (soil, air and water) after discharge. Our early public lessons in applied ecology taught us that the environment is a single integrated system and that there are frequently unintended consequences associated with the human use of that environment. The contemporary lessons from the identification and cleanup of uncontrolled hazardous waste sites under the “Superfund” program lends a new impetus to our reconsideration of these concepts.

The use of hedging with commodity futures markets to reduce the price risk in corn production is examined. Both intra-year and inter-year risk are evaluated with different hedging strategies. Strategies involve no hedge, hedge and hold, controlled hedge placement and hold, and in and out hedging. Both technical and forecasting criteria are used to place hedges in the more active strategies. Substantial risk reduction is possible, often without a reduction in price received. Considerable basis risk diminishes the risk reducing properties of a hedge and hold strategy.

Farris and Padberg, Krenz, and Boxley have discussed different ways of projecting the distribution of firm sizes. Farris and Padberg utilize Markov chain analysis where transition probabilities were derived from observed changes in firm size for Florida citrus packing firms over a five-year period. Krenz, recognizing the difficulty of securing data with which to estimate transition probabilities, developed rules which could be used to derive transition probabilities from census data. Krenz applied this technique to the size distributions of North Dakota farms. Finally, Boxley applied a completely different technique to estimating farm size distributions in the United States. Boxley's technique involved fitting negative exponential functions to firm size distributions observed from census data. According to Boxley, these functions were sufficiently stable to permit estimation of future firm size distributions.

In response to survival challenges, small farms in the United States undertake decisions to minimize downside risk or maximize gross revenue. Using primary survey data of small farms in Tennessee, we examined farmers’ strategic decisions on specialization or other forms of diversification and estimated the impacts of these decisions on farm financial performance. We found that farmer’s age, farmland holdings, use of a smartphone in farm-related activities, and off-farm work significantly influenced these strategic decisions. Our multinomial endogenous switching regression estimates suggested that small farms could attain significantly higher performance, around 45% higher gross farm income and a 30% higher return on assets, by adding alternative on-farm enterprises.

There exists no mechanism for federal agencies, national laboratories, industry, and academic institutions to set a national environmental research agenda. Moreover, funding for social science research is inadequate for providing a sound scientific basis for making environmental policy. Despite this lack of leadership, it is quite possible to define an environmental economic research agenda that could lead to improved policies for protecting and managing the environment. The present paper makes some recommendations from an insider's viewpoint.

Control of sediment has become increasingly important as an element of many water quality improvement programs. An analytical method using the universal soil loss equation and linear programming to determine the cost-effectiveness of alternative sediment control practices is developed. Applications of this method to four case study farms and a hypothetical watershed are analyzed. The analyses illustrate the need for developing priorities so as to achieve greatest reduction in sediment losses per dollar of cost. The costs per unit of sediment reduction vary greatly with area, soil, and strategy or technique used.

This study investigates the effects on the U.S. cotton industry of textile trade liberalization using a multi-market equilibrium displacement model. The simulation results suggest that textile trade liberalization would induce small changes in the total demand for U.S. cotton but would affect considerably U.S. cotton demand structure, making U.S. cotton growers more dependent on world markets. The welfare analyses reveal that textile trade liberalization would result in a small welfare loss for U.S. cotton producers. As expected, textile trade liberalization also would lead to considerable substitution of imports for domestic production and substantial declines in prices of all textile products.

Nearly level terrain, heavy soils, and impermeable subsoil horizons commonly cause poor drainage in Northern New York. Forty-five percent of the cropland in this region is classified as poorly drained (Lucey). The soils in this area dry slowly, consequently restricting the effective length of the growing season. Production of corn is marginal and the establishment of legume seedings is prevented by poor drainage. Poor drainage is only a single characteristic of a farm's soil resource, but it has multiple effects. Farm managers have adjusted to poor drainage by using grass hay crops as a forage base and by adopting other management practices which utilize land more extensively.

Point-of-use/point-of-entry treatment can provide an affordable means for rural residents on private wells to remedy groundwater contamination. Cooperation among homeowners was hypothesized to be a means of further reducing treatment costs due to quantity discounts and avoidance of dealer mark-ups. Data obtained through a mail survey of water treatment firms was used to test this hypothesis. Individual and group purchase, installation and maintenance costs and manufacturer and dealer costs were compared using analysis of variance. Results indicate a cooperative treatment approach may provide benefits due to quantity discounts but little potential exists for savings via direct manufacturer purchase.

Crop yields which determine farm income deficiency payments have been frozen at 1981-1985 levels since 1986. Data from a longitudinal survey of Ohio farm operators are analyzed to evaluate whether updating payment yields will differentially affect farm operators. Results of the analysis imply that farm operators who operate larger farms, live in counties with higher yields, and have higher fertilizer and pesticide expenses per acre of corn will benefit more. In addition, low (high) existing payment yields are understated (overstated) relative to updated payment yields.

The energy crunch of the mid-seventies has adversely affected the greenhouse tomato industry in the North Central and Northeast regions. Traditionally, these two regions had been the main producers of greenhouse tomatoes in the U.S. where, because of the climatic restriction, greenhouse tomato production evolved to supply fresh tomatoes during winter and spring months. Since greenhouse producers in the north rely on fossil fuels for heating purposes, their production costs have escalated, thereby tending to price these tomatoes out of the market. In recent years many greenhouse tomato producers in the northern regions have either ceased production or switched into alternative enterprises. For instance, the Census of Agriculture reported 45 growers in Massachusetts in 1974, with covered areas of 535,842 square feet; by 1979, according to extension experts, the number declined to 25 and the area declined to between 150,000 and 200,000 square feet. The number of growers in New Jersey declined from 42 in the 1974 census to only 19 in 1979. Similar declines have occurred in New York and Pennsylvania.

Present land use control mechanisms are seen as inadequate for the preservation of open space, agricultural land, and other “uneconomic” uses of land. Many proposals have been cited as possible solutions to the problems created by present land use control mechanisms. The transfer of development rights (hereafter known as TDR's) is one such proposal. This mechanism for land use control can be of several forms. There are severe theoretical and practical problems, to be discussed, which a transfer of development rights program must overcome if it is to function in practical application.