This book is about economic transformation in agriculture and the adjustments needed in public and private strategies to facilitate it. The book uses theory from the social and physical sciences and practical experience gained throughout the world to recommend strategies that are generally applicable to new market economies in transition. Bulgaria is used as a case example because it provides an empirical reference of interest because of its diversity, its massive restructuring, and its precollectivization history as an efficient sector. The book also provides a means for coordinating output...

Modeling Environmental Policy demonstrates the link between physical models of the environment and policy analysis in support of policy making. Each chapter addresses an environmental policy issue using a quantitative modeling approach. The volume addresses three general areas of environmental policy - non-point source pollution in the agricultural sector, pollution generated in the extractive industries, and transboundary pollutants from burning fossil fuels. The book concludes by discussing the modeling efforts and the use of mathematical models in general.

In the book's four Parts, the interdisciplinary approach to many issues contributes to the relationship between water and poverty.

Part I includes articles on the conceptual and methodological issues concerning poverty reduction through water resources development. It also offers analysis of quantitative measurements of poverty reduction, including some approaches for creating a Water Poverty Index. Part II considers the institutional frameworks for management of water and poverty reduction. Topics range from community-based decision making to international leadership. Part III...

This book arose out of a paper that I wrote for the World Bank at the request of Ariel Dinar, the editor for the series in which this volume appears. I began that paper by pointing to the growing importance of demand-side considerations in water resources: "The provision of potable water is one of government's oldest functions with evidence of this activity stretching back thousands of years. During much of that time, water demands were taken as exogenously given and the principle task of authorities was defined as an engineering one: how to supply a given quantity of water at least cost. In...

Colleagues and friends of Dan Yaron submitted the following tributes. While each submission comes from an individual who knew Dan in a very different way, they all remark on his immeasurable contributions to the field of agricultural eco- nomics, his unique approach, which combines his training and experience with his scientific background, and the admirable professionalism and civility that was apparent in every project he undertook. His work, initially inspired by the chal- lenge of farmers in the arid Negev, eventually took him to the United States to work with universities and to serve on...

Knowledge generation and transfer mechanisms are being transformed in important and controversial ways. Investment in research and development has increased in response to recognition that scientific productivity is tightly connected to economic dynamism. Patent protection has been expanded in order to stimulate higher levels of private investment. Intellectual property rights held by public organizations and researchers are now increasingly transferred to private organizations to accelerate the diffusion and enhance the value of knowledge produced by public agencies and universities....

The relative prosperity in U.S. agriculture that attended the passage of the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 was followed by a general decline in U.S. agricultural prices from 1998 to 2000. This trend in declining prices continues through the year 2001, despite the movement toward more liberalized agricultural trade. Trade liberalization has been the result of a variety of factors, including the implementation of the Uruguay Round Agreement, and the establishment of a variety of regional trade agreements, such as the North America Free Trade Agreement. Needless to say,...

This book demonstrates what the discipline of economics has to offer as support for analyzing cooperation on management of trans-boundary water resources. It also considers what the discipline of economics has to acquire to become a more effective contributor to trans-boundary water resource management given political, legal, social, physical, scientific, and ecological realities. This book has its genesis in a symposium of the International Water and Resource Economics Consortium held at Annapolis, Maryland, April 13-16, 1997. The symposium was organized by the editors and the book contains...

Centralized, top-down management of water resources through regulations has created unnecessary economic burdens upon users. More flexible decentralized controls through the use of economic incentives have gained acceptance over the past decade. The theme of this book is the increasing efforts throughout water-scarce regions to rely upon economic incentives and decentralized mechanisms for efficient water management and allocation.
The book begins with a section of introductory chapters describing water systems, institutions, constraints, and similarities in the following regions:...

In 1981 Chile's military government dictated a new Water Code that radically changed the country's previous water rights system by strengthening private property rights, favoring market incentives, and reducing state regulation. Against the Current: Privatization, Water Markets, and the State in Chile is the first empirical and interdisciplinary study of water markets in Chile, which is the leading international example of free market water policies.
Against the Current: Privatization, Water Markets, and the State in Chile challenges the glowing...