Economic Analysis of Regional Agricultural and Environmental Policy and Applicability of Experimental Studies

Abstract

This paper considers the experimental analysis of the policy evaluation analysis in agricultural and environmental studies. First, the role of experimental analysis in the policy analysis is discussed. Experimental analysis requires randomization. However, for the agricultural policy analysis, it might be difficult to achieve assignment to treatment group randomly due to unfairness. Alternatively, hypothetical policy analysis using the stated choice and laboratory experiments are proposed. Second, the choice experiment study is considered to analyze the avoidance behavior of food risk after the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. Experimental result shows that the radiation exposure via food consumption does not have an effect on the consumers’ choice behavior. It suggests that an appealing to the food safety aspect has less of an effect on the consumers’ choice behavior. Third, the effect of environmental policy in agriculture on farmers’ conservation behavior is analyzed using a laboratory experiment. Experimental result shows that the non-monetary support system has significant effect on conservation behavior in the early periods of the experiment. However, without compensation, most farmers stop the conservation activities in later periods. Finally, future research topics of the experimental studies for the agricultural and environmental policy analysis are proposed.