Coupling integrated assessment models to market equilibrium models to analyse economic and agricultural-environment interactions across different scales

摘要: One of the aims of agricultural research is to develop sustainable agricultural production systems that balance the often competing goals of profitability, human and environmental health, and equity. Researchers have been developing different methods to assess the sustainability of agricultural production systems. On the one hand, methods have been developed to integrate biophysical and economic models at a disaggregated level with the objective of capturing the heterogeneity of the physical environment and economic behavior of farmers (Just & Antle, 1990; Fleming & Adams, 1997; Stoorvogel et al., 2004). On the other hand, aggregated models based on the construct of ‘representative agent’have been widely used in policy decision making. Market equilibrium (ME) models are a good example of these models. They have been used to evaluate welfare implications of a particular change (policy, environmental, etc.) using representative data of producer and consumer behaviors. This implies that aggregated models do not capture the biophysical and economical heterogeneity that characterizes production systems. Conversely, results from integrated assessment models that capture this heterogeneity have not been linked to market equilibrium models. However, several studies have recognized the need to link these two types of models as an important step in the assessment of agriculture-environment interactions in order to understand the processes and relationships across different scales (Kayser, 1999). It is clear from the literature that here is an evident lack of methods that couple site-specific integrated assessment models with ME …