Overview

Students in the agricultural and resource policy field will develop sound analytical tools, a rigorous research methodology, and apply them to real world problems including agriculture, resources, and policy issues generally.

Our policy field combines analytical rigor, quantitative emphasis and relevance. Most public policy analysts focus on only one of the four policy dimensions: incidence, mechanism design, political economy, or governance structures. Members of our department work in each of these areas, developing the theory, applying these models to policy issues and affecting policy change.

Issues in agricultural and resource policy encompass questions of farm production, resource use, uncertainty, organizational behavior, political economy, policy design, market behavior, and the effect of agricultural production on the environment.

Governments have intervened heavily in agriculture and resource markets, creating a rich environment for policy analysis. These policies are a result of pressures from public and special interests which have the potential of suffering from collective action problems.

Courses

ARE 241: Economics of Production, Technology, Risk, Agriculture and the Environment

Three hours of lecture per week. Prerequisites: ARE 201 and 202, or Economics 200A-B, or consent of instructor. Agricultural policy problems in developed and less developed economies. Cutting-edge theory, implementation and econometric implications of dynamic stochastic modelling of markets for agricultural and other commodities. Effects of shocks on dynamic behavior of markets. Welfare evaluation methodology and applications to policy interventions (research, price supports, market stabilization, environmental regulations, cartelization), and implications for efficiency and distribution.

ARE 242. Quantitative Public Policy

Three hours of lecture per week. Prerequisites: ARE 211 or consent of instructor. Public policy analytical frameworks typically focus on only one of four dimensions: incidence, mechanism design, political economy and governance structures. The four analytical dimensions can be distinguished in accordance with their imposed maintained hypotheses, or assumptions, and the type of failures that arise. The roles of public versus special interests are modelled to determine the degree and extent of organizational failures in collective group behavior. Each of the four analytical dimensions must be integrated in the design of public policies that are sustainable and robust to an evolving economy and society.

Faculty

	Peter Berck Fields: Natural resource policy; Timber; Fisheries.
	Alain de Janvry Fields: Regional development policy; Common property resources; and Payment for environmental services.
	Michael Hanemann Fields: Water policy; Valuing environmental benefits.
	Jeffrey T. LaFrance Fields: Risk and insurance; Food demand; Land policy.
	Jeffrey M. Perloff Fields: Industrial organization; Agricultural labor.
	Gordon C. Rausser Fields: Political economy; Policy process; Policy implementation, Environment and economic growth.
	David Roland-Holst Fields: Development; Energy; Environment and climate change; Trade; Food and Agricultural Policy.
	Leo K. Simon Fields: Game theory; Modelling the policy process; Water policy.
	David L. Sunding Fields: Water policy; Environmental effects of agricultural policy.
	Brian D. Wright Fields: Price behavior in markets for storable commodities and implications for econometric estimation; Dynamics of policy and capitalization of support payments.
	David Zilberman Fields: Agricultural production under uncertainty; Technology adoption; Environmental effects of agricultural policy.

Past Student Placements