Abstract
Motivations for agricultural policy are increas ingly driven by nonproduction or multifunc tional services. As early as 1977, Gardner argued that the most compelling case for agricultural preservation is the provision of public-good amenities. Economists have since devoted considerable effort to research that es timates market and nonmarket values of mul tifunctional outputs (Bergstrom and Ready 2009). Given recent progress in this area, however, it is surprising how little impact related research has made on the policy pro cess. Consider selection approaches used in common purchase of agricultural conservation easement (PACE) programs. Such approaches (e.g., Land Evaluation and Site Assessment) use criteria that focus largely on parcel at tributes associated with profitable production where no market failure exists (e.g., soil qual ity, see Nickerson and Hellerstein 2003), with less weight given to multifunctional amenities or public preferences. Among the reasons for limited use of pub lic preference information to guide policy is the paucity of transferable tools to predict the influence of multifunctional services on pub lic welfare. Evidence from the valuation liter
Published Version
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