PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR - PRIVATE CONTRIBUTIONS TO AGRICULTURES IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENT

Private provision of public environmental benefits is considered with a theory of prosocial behavior that elaborates the roles of nonhedonis tic values held by agents as well as the functional interaction betwee n private good and public good production processes. The theory also i dentifies the conditions under which public environmental goods will b e privately supplied and motivates and empirical approach. Models of e nvironmental effort in agriculture are estimated based on a survey of U.S. field crop fanners. Results confirm the role of hedonistic motiva tion of environmental effort and provide very weak evidence of a role of nonhedonistic values.