There has been active development and implementation of agri-environmental policies dealing with the provision of ecosystem goods and services over the years. However, these policies have often not been directed towards certain lands with the greatest potential for producing environmental benefits and those areas where the benefits are greater relative to cost. The limited budgets allocated to agri-environmental programs, and the often large and heterogeneous nature of agricultural landscapes, makes policy efficiency an important consideration. Incorporating targeting mechanisms in the design of agri-environmental policy instruments could improve the efficiency of such policies. This thesis illustrates the efficiency gains from policy targeting, by applying three targeting protocols and a hybrid method using representative wildlife habitat conservation policy approaches that set-aside land from crop production by purchasing or leasing land. The GIS land selection models developed for this research assessed the net benefits for wildlife based on the opportunity cost of idling land from agricultural production. As indicated by the results, policy delivery using targeting mechanisms selectively enrolls significantly greater areas of wetlands and natural vegetative cover. Thus, targeted policy enrolled land will provide greater wildlife habitat and other environmental benefits compared to the baseline landscape which represents a non-targeted land enrollment and hence increase the environmental benefits of the program for a given budget.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2002. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 116 p. : ill. (some col.). Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis (M.S.)--Oregon State University, 2002. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 75-78). Also available online.

Thesis (M.E.S.)--York University, 2001. / Title on certificate page: NAFTA and environmental politics in Mexico : the communicative process under agricultural modernization. Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 154-164). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pMQ71594.

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This thesis investigates the political scientific implications of the postulate that political actors behave as if they were Rational (i.e., Economic) Men. The basic aim of the theoretical discussion is to explain both the existence and substance of norms of social cooperation. Rational Men would cooperate under special circumstances constituting a "coordination problem." Depending on the details of the situation, they would organize their cooperative efforts through either social processes of mutual adjustment or political-legal processes. The substance of the code of political morality Rational Men would embrace combines an Aggregative Principle that total goods available to society as a whole be maximized and a distributive Works Principle that each individual should prosper according to his own works. The results of this theoretical analysis are subjected to two extended empirical tests. The first is whether the Rational Man code of political morality corresponds in essential respects to the norms of political morality as revealed by linguistic analysis. The second test utilizes both of the theoretical arguments to explain the politics of environmental protection. The Rational Man model can explain the fact of pollution, the demand for governmental intervention, the opposition of some men to such inter- vention, the details of environmental protection laws and the shape of the international dispute.

Thesis (MEd) -- University of South Australia, 1993