Soil and water conservation programs of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) are under increasing scrutiny. Congress, interest groups, and departmental budget people are requesting systematic documentation of the impacts of these programs. Their basic concern is economic performance – the “payoff” for public dollars invested in conservation. This paper examines two aspects of the increasing application of economics to soil and water conservation policy. Both are discussed in the context of current efforts within USDA to implement the Soil and Water Resources Conservation Act of 1977. This new law provides a policy setting within which questions of economic performance are addressed. Examined first is use of formal analytical models in identifying economic consequences of alternative conservation strategies. Second, issues concerning economics of public choice are addressed. The first implies search for greater efficiency of resource use; the latter concerns the distribution of policy impacts in the political economy. Both are important. The paper concludes by identifying research needs. This is a policy paper, not a report of research results.

Strand introduced the symposium with a general discussion of how the hedonic approach is being used to value natural resources. At issue was how one could identify both supply and demand functions for natural resources (e.g. sport fish or waterfowl) from expenditure data collected in cross-sectional interviews of recreationalists. The critical element is that the derivative of the hedonic equation with respect to an output is dependent on another variable within the system.

In order to empirically investigate the economic development process in rural areas, factors that are associated with the level and changes in employment must be conceptualized, operationalized and measured accurately. This symposium was organized to discuss the conceptualization, operationalization and measurement of these factors.

Alter, the first speaker, briefly reviewed the basic characteristics of the property tax, including some of its shortcomings which have provided support for those demanding reforms, He then discussed a number of suggested reforms and property tax alternatives. Concentrating on a flat rate income tax, he pointed out its implications in terms of burden, equity, and inefficiency.

In the summer and fall of 1977 a survey team carried out a study of environmental issues and problems as perceived by high-school-ago youth, selected adult key informants, and relevant organizational leaders. The study was completed in the spring of 1978 as part of a larger series of Level B studies sponsored by the New England River Basins Commission.

The annual business meeting of the Northeastern Agricultural Economics Council was called to order at 8:30 A.M. on June 20, 1979 at the University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware, by President Johannes Delphandahl.

The name of the organization shall be: “Northeastern Agricultural Economics Council.”