Cotton farmers in the Piedmont region incorrectly believe conservation systems with winter cover crop and no-till cultivation yield less than conventional systems. We model the effect of organic matter on productivity and show how ignoring this effect causes returns to be underestimated. Farmers with imperfect information underinvest in residue management.

This paper examines the economics of urban expansion onto rural land in light of the sustainable management requirements of New Zealand's Resource Management Act. It finds that if conversion of land from rural to urban uses is practically irreversible because of the high cost of restoring rural qualities, it creates a user cost or inter-temporal externality which planning controls could address. Comparison of the methods for implementing such a policy show tradable development rights have high efficiency, but there are legal, practical and political obstacles to their use.

The Resource Management Act 1991 sets new standards for environmental regulations in New Zealand. The emphasis of the legislation is on property rights and market solutions. This paper is concerned with the limits to market solutions in the presence of externalities and potentially high transaction costs.