Richard N. Boisvert

The Benefits of Customer Participation in Wholesale Electricity Markets

Abstract By participating in the New York ISO’s price-responsive load programs, customers have contributed importantly to the prevention of forced outages at a time when system electricity demands hit record levels. Through their load curtailments, they also exerted some downward pressure on market prices and price volatility.

Industrialization, urbanization and land use in China

Rapid industrial development and urbanization transfer more and more land away from agricultural production and affect the patterns of land use intensity. This paper analyzes the determinants of land use by modeling arable land and sown area separately. An inverse U-shaped relationship between land use intensity and industrialization is explored both theoretically and empirically. The findings highlight the conflict between the two policy goals of industrialization and grain self-sufficiency in the end. Several policy recommendations are offered to reconcile the conflict.

An optimization model of the dual-purpose cattle production system in the humid lowlands of Venezuela

Abstract We developed a deterministic, multi-period linear programming (LP) model of the dual-purpose (milk-beef) cattle production system in the Sur del Lago region of Venezuela. The LP model selected animal, forage, and purchased feed activities subject to nutritional, land, and herd composition constraints to maximize discounted herd net margin. A cattle nutrition model provided original coefficients for feeds and animal nutrient requirements. Revised coefficients resulted from an iterative procedure to avoid errors from the interaction between diet and requirements. Model applications demonstrated that alternatives to traditional feeding practices are profitable and nutritionally feasible. However, the benefits of alternative nutritional management depend on labor availability. Our simulation of price policy changes in the late 1980s indicated that dual-purpose producers may experience increased relative incentives for milk production under the new input and output prices. The model is adaptable to dual-purpose production systems elsewhere in Latin America.

Nontrade Concerns: Reconciling Domestic Policy Objectives with Freer Trade in Agricultural Products

Since the conclusion of the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations in 1994, there has been increasing debate about the implications of freer trade for domestic or “nontrade” objectives in agriculture. These range from traditional concerns, such as food security and rural development, to more recent issues such as the relationship between agriculture and the environment, and the effects of agricultural practices on human health and animal welfare. For countries reluctant to reduce agricultural protection, a key issue is the extent to which domestic policy objectives would need to be sacrificed under freer trade. For countries espousing trade liberalization, the issue is whether domestic policy objectives will be used as a guise to undermine freer trade in agricultural products. In this paper, we focus on two areas of concern that are stressed by rich, developed countries—the linkage between agriculture and the environment, and animal welfare. Environmental issues are prominent in Asia, Europe and, increasingly in North America, while animal welfare is a major issue in Europe. It is generally acknowledged that agricultural support, provided through implicit consumer taxes and direct subsidies in developed countries, generates much of the distortion in global agricultural trade. The more than

What Makes a Customer Price Responsive

300 billion of agricultural support that is provided annually by OECD countries, disadvantages developing country exporters and causes distortions in importers. Ensuring that there are effective disciplines on trade-distorting forms of support will be vital to the suc

Distinguishing between whole-farm vs. partial-farm participation in the conservation reserve program.

Abstract Most customers prefer accommodating program features, such as guaranteed payment levels and no penalties for non-compliance to calls for curtailments. A good prospective participant often has previous experience with some form of load management program, but any lack of experience can be overcome through appropriate education.

CONTROL OF NONPOINT SOURCE POLLUTION THROUGH VOLUNTARY INCENTIVE-BASED POLICIES: AN APPLICATION TO NITRATE CONTAMINATION IN NEW YORK

By distinguishing between the decision to participate in the conservation reserve program (CRP) and the decision for whole-farm vs. part-farm participation, we model participation as separate binary decisions. Our results suggest the farm characteristics and other factors affect the decision to participate in CRP differently than the decision regarding whole-farm vs. part-farm participation. This model formulation also helps to clarify the conditions under which the effect of CRP payments on the acreage enrolled in the program is positive or negative. (JEL Q15, Q18)

Multifunctionality and Optimal Environmental Policies for Agriculture in an Open Economy

A voluntary program is developed to achieve environmental goals through the self-interested choices of farmers under environmental risk and asymmetric information. Farmers behave to maximize expected net returns, and environmental quality standards are formulated through chance constraints. Because the government may not know each farmers soil type, policy options must be self-selecting. The model is applied empirically to nitrate leaching and runoff from corn production in three New York regions. Asymmetric information between producers and the government would impose additional cost burdens on society, but these costs are modest in the context of other farm programs.

Are farmers' decisions to work off the farm related to their decisions to participate in the conservation reserve program?

This paper develops a general equilibrium framework to determine the optimal set of internalizing policies under multifunctionality and relates these policies to trade. When agriculture generates both amenity benefits and pollution, a welfare maximum can be achieved through a combination of a subsidy on agricultural land and a tax on polluting inputs, but the levels of these policies must be selected jointly. To illustrate this interaction, a set of stylized policy simulations of the aggregate U.S. agricultural sector is performed. The estimated optimal subsidy on farmland exceeds its social amenity value by approximately 50%. If opened to international trade, small economies have no incentive to distort environmental policies away from their internalizing levels, but large economies will manipulate domestic policies in order to exploit terms of trade. As a large agricultural exporter, the U.S. could manipulate its environmental policy set to increase world agricultural prices by an estimated 9% over a base case of no environmental policy.

TRADEOFF BETWEEN ECONOMIES OF SIZE IN TREATMENT AND DISECONOMIES OF DISTRIBUTION FOR RURAL WATER SYSTEMS

Since both working off the farm and participating in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) remove important resources from US agricultural production, we utilize two econometric specifications to test hypotheses regarding whether these two decisions by farmers are independent. We find statistical evidence that decisions to participate in CRP and work off the farm are correlated. Characteristics of farm households and farm operations affect both decisions directly and indirectly, as do local economic conditions and participation in other farm programs. To illustrate their importance, we simulate the combined direct and indirect effects of changes in decoupled payments and farm size on the probabilities of farm households engaging in these two activities. We also illustrate that the probability of engaging in these two activities depends on whether the farm is located in a state, or local agricultural district or participates in a related farmland retention program.