Projects Funded for Gordon Rausser

2014-2015

The Potential for Bioenergy Production in California: A Real Options Analysis Assessing Key Policy Challenges

Gordon Rausser

2009-2010

Minority Farmer Loan Subsidy Discrimination: Does It Exist?

Gordon Rausser

Abstract

Anecdotal reports suggest that the USDA Farm Service Agency's Direct Loan Program (DLP) discriminated against minority farmers. We collect data from the Economic Research Service's Phase III Agricultural and Resource Management Survey (ARMS) between 1992 and 2007, and find evidence consistent with these claims. We document a difference in the percentage of direct loans going to minority farmers and the percentage of minority farmers in the ARMS sample. However, one cannot attribute this difference to discrimination without accounting for the loan application process—minority farmers may be less likely to apply for a loan. To address this, we develop a cohesive empirical approach using the NASS Agricultural Census, ARMS and FSA Administrative data to analyze discriminatory practices and other facets of the DLP such as its impact on graduation to the commercial loan sector. Results were communicated to USDA representatives and presented to academic audiences, including the Giannini Foundation Student Conference.

2007-2008

An Economic and Political Investigation of Groundwater Management

Gordon Rausser and Susan Stratton

Abstract

This research project assesses the political implications of intra-aquifer heterogeneity in the benefits and costs of optimal groundwater management. We use simulation modeling to predict groundwater extraction regimes under two alternative local decision-making structures and compare these structures to optimal management. Local collective action performs poorly when the intra-aquiferdisparity in the potential gains is large. As a result, local collective action is unlikely to be successful in capturing the largest welfare gains. Individual subregions within a groundwater basin almost always benefit most from political structures whose outcomes diverge from optimal management. The analysis in this paper suggests that there may be regions where large potential gains from optimal management are available, but cannot be realized by the two alternative local political institutions. Thus, there may be a role for State intervention in the local political processes by which local water management decisions are made.

Publications

"Property Rights and Water Transfers: Bargaining Among Multiple Stakeholders" (with Susan Stratton Sayre and Leo K. Simon). Strategic Behavior and the Environment 1(1): 1-29, 2010.

"Local Negotiation with Heterogeneous Groundwater Users" (with Susan Stratton Sayre and Leo K. Simon). Forthcoming in Strategic Behavior and the Environment.

2006-2007

The Effect of Land Trusts on Land Allocation and Housing Prices in California

Gordon Rausser

2005-2006

Agri-Environmental Programs in the U.S.: The Effects of the WTO and Implications for California

Gordon Rausser

2002-2003

Trade and the Risk to California Agriculture from Pest Introductions

Gordon Rausser

2000-2001

Sustainable Policymaking within a Complex Physical-Economic-Political System

Gordon Rausser, Leo K. Simon, Rachael Goodhue, and Richard Howitt

1998-1999

Understanding Production Contracts: Input Control and Other Contract Provisions

Gordon Rausser and Rachael Goodhue