@article{che_feng_hennessy_2023, title={Will adoption occur if a practice is win-win for profit and the environment? An application to a rancher?s grazing practice choices}, volume={209}, ISSN={["1873-6106"]}, DOI={10.1016/j.ecolecon.2023.107826}, abstractNote={Rotational grazing has the potential to provide both economic and environmental benefits; however, the set of ranchers that adopts is much smaller than the set that regards rotational grazing as a win-win practice. To investigate this adoption gap and learn about adoption decisions and motivations, we survey 874 ranchers on the U.S. Great Plains. We find that a large proportion of surveyed ranchers who view rotational grazing as win-win for both profit and the environment do not adopt the practice. We also find that win-win non-adopters are a constrained group for most potential challenges to rotational grazing adoption, especially regarding high initial costs, water resource limitations, and ranch conditions. Some of these impediments could be relieved by capital to which, however, win-win non-adopters have limited access. Win-win non-adopters are more likely to adopt rotational grazing than others when a one-time subsidy is offered, suggesting that win-win non-adopters hold promise as a target group for subsidies to reduce the cost of adoption. Our analysis shows the importance of understanding the specifics of an adoption gap when making and implementing policies.}, journal={ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS}, author={Che, Yuyuan and Feng, Hongli and Hennessy, David A.}, year={2023}, month={Jul} }
 @article{park_rejesus_aglasan_che_hagen_salas_2022, title={Payments from agricultural conservation programs and cover crop adoption}, ISSN={["2040-5804"]}, DOI={10.1002/aepp.13248}, abstractNote={AbstractThis study explores how aggregate payments received from two different U.S. agricultural conservation programs—the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP)—influence county‐level cover crop adoption rates in the Corn Belt. We utilize 2006–2015 county‐level panel data with information on cover crop adoption rates and per acre conservation program payments to achieve the study objective. Cover crop adoption information is collected from a unique satellite‐based data set of soil health practices. Linear fixed effect models, fractional regression models, and a moment‐based instrumental variables model are used in the empirical analysis. Our estimation results suggest that EQIP payments have a statistically significant positive effect on cover crop adoption at the county level. In contrast, we find statistical evidence that CSP payments reduce the county‐level proportion of acres planted to cover crops. These opposing effects indicate that it is possible for conservation payment programs to have differing aggregate effects on adoption rates of specific conservation practices (e.g., cover crops in this case). Moreover, these results imply that not all conservation programs “are created equal” and differences in policy designs and focus areas may induce diverging effects in the uptake of particular conservation practices.}, journal={APPLIED ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES AND POLICY}, author={Park, Byungyul and Rejesus, Roderick M. and Aglasan, Serkan and Che, Yuyuan and Hagen, Stephen C. and Salas, William}, year={2022}, month={Mar} }
 @article{lu_che_rejesus_goodwin_ghosh_paudel_2023, title={Unintended environmental benefits of crop insurance: Nitrogen and phosphorus in water bodies}, volume={204}, ISSN={["1873-6106"]}, DOI={10.1016/j.ecolecon.2022.107657}, abstractNote={Agricultural policies without explicit environmental goals can indirectly affect the natural environment through its effect on farmer input use behavior. For example, the highly-subsidized crop insurance program in the United States (US), while developed to protect farmers against yield and revenue risks, also has the potential to influence fertilizer and land use decisions, which can then impact the extent of excess nitrogen and phosphorus that can run-off and pollute nearby water bodies. This study utilizes county-level panel data from 1989-2015 to directly evaluate the impact of crop insurance participation on nitrogen and phosphorus concentration in waterways. Results from linear panel fixed effects (FE) models suggest that counties with higher crop insurance participation tend to have lower nitrogen concentrations in its water bodies, but the effects are small. In contrast, we do not find a consistent statistically significant crop insurance effect on phosphorus concentrations. Findings based on alternative estimation techniques and other empirical specifications generally support our baseline FE model results. We posit that the modest crop insurance effects may be due to two competing mechanisms — the moral hazard effect of crop insurance (i.e., reducing fertilizer use), being counteracted by the incentive to bring in riskier crops or marginal land to production (i.e., increasing fertilizer use).}, journal={ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS}, author={Lu, Xun and Che, Yuyuan and Rejesus, Roderick M. and Goodwin, Barry K. and Ghosh, Sujit K. and Paudel, Jayash}, year={2023}, month={Feb} }