Economic Policy and Sustainable Land Use: Recent Advances in Quantitative Analysis for Developing Countries

Since the 1980s many developing countries have implemented macro-economic policy reforms to curb inflation, reduce fiscal deficits and control foreign debt. The policy instruments used, such as exchange rate adjustment, budget cuts, trade policy reforms, public expenditure reviews and privatisation, have different and sometimes opposite consequences for agricultural land use. During the same period awareness was growing that deteriorating soil quality could become a limiting factor to increase or even sustain agricultural production. As a result, food availability and even accessibility for large population groups in developing countries may be jeopardised in the near future. Recently, quantitative models have made useful contributions to understanding the impact of economic policy reforms on the sustainability of land use. They provide a consistent analytical framework to deal with complex issues such as the direct and indirect effects of economic, agricultural, environmental and population policies, the role of market imperfections in transmitting economic policy signals, and the interactions between soil quality, agricultural production and household economic decision making. Different types of models can be distinguished: bio­ economic models, focussing on the link between farm household decisions and the agricultural resource base, household and village models, examining the impact of the socio-economic environment on farm household decisions, and more aggregate models, analysing interactions between sectors and their implications for sustainable land use.

Table of Contents:
1 Economic Policy Reforms and Sustainable Land Use in Developing Countries: Issues and Approaches.- 2 Soil Degradation and Agricultural Production: Economic and Biophysical Approaches.- 3 Technical Options for Agricultural Development in the Ethiopian Highlands: A Model of Crop-Livestock Interactions.- 4 Land Degradation as a Transformation Process in an Intertemporal Welfare Optimisation Framework.- 5 Population Pressure and Land Degradation in the Ethiopian Highlands:A Bio-Economic Model with Endogenous Soil Degradation.- 6 Imperfect Food Markets and Household Adoption of Soil Conservation Practices in the Dominican Republic Highlands:Household Probit and Duration Models.- 7 Soil Conservation and Imperfect Labour Markets in El Salvador: an Empirical Application of a Dynamic Control Modelof Farm Production.- 8 Assessing the Effects of Policy Measures on Household Welfare and Agro-Ecological Sustainability:an Overview of Farm Household Modelling Approaches.- 9 Agricultural Prices and Land Degradation in Koutiala, Mali:a Regional Simulation Model Based on Farmers’ Decision Rules.- 10 Integrating Site-Specific Biophysical and Economic Models to Assess Trade-offs in Sustainable Land Use and Soil Quality.- 11 Effects of Land Degradation in a Diversified Economy with Local Staple and Labour Markets:A Village-Town CGE Analysis from Mexico.- 12 Agricultural Production and Erosion in a Small Watershed in Honduras: a Non-Linear Programming Approach.- 13 Alternative Approaches to the Economics of Soil Nutrient Depletion in Costa Rica:Exploratory, Predictive and Normative Bio-Economic Models.- 14 Effects of Economic Policies on Farmers, Consumers and Soil Degradation: a Recursively Dynamic Sector Modelwith an Application for Burkina Faso.- 15 Soil Degradation in Macro CGEModels.- 16 The Effect of Soil Degradation on Agricultural Productivity in Ethiopia: A Non-Parametric Regression Analysis.- 17 Between Free Riders and Free Raiders:Property Rights and Soil Degradation in Context.- 18 Land Rights, Farmers’ Investment, and Sustainable Land Use: Modelling Approaches and Empirical Evidence.- 19 Assessing Social Factors in Sustainable Land-Use Management: Social Capital and Common Land Development in Rajasthan, India.- 20 Modelling Economic Policy Reforms and Sustainable Land Use in Developing Countries: Key Issues.