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Aléa moral et politiques d’audit optimales dans le cadre de la pollution d’origine agricole de l’eau

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  • Spaeter, Sandrine
  • Verchère, Alban

Abstract

When information on farmers’ farming methods is incomplete, it isnot optimal to fight water pollution due to their activities exclusively through a tax policy. Symmetrically, subsidies alone are not appropriate for some cereals which are already widely subsidized in the European Union. In this paper, we show that a contract between the farmer and the regulator with random audit, penalties or financial compensations depending on the environmental effort of the farmer, could be another alternative for Society. The relevance of such an audit policy depends on the reliability of the informations given by some indicators on the pedological, hydrological and agronomic characteristics of cultivated soils. From the practical point of view, we discuss the consistency and also the availability of such indicators in the case of the Alsatian groundwater pollution by agricultural activities. We also describe the main features of the audit system adopted in some water catchment areas in Germany (Baden-Wurttemberg).;;Compte tenu de l’information incomplète dont on dispose quant aux pratiques culturales des exploitants agricoles, il n’est pas toujours optimal de baser les politiques de lutte contre la pollution d’origine agricole de l’eau exclusivement sur un mode de taxation. Symétriquement, un système entièrement assis sur des subventions se justifie mal dans le cadre de certaines cultures déjà largement subventionnées au niveau européen. Dans cet article, nous montrons qu’une alternative possible consiste à établir un contrat entre l’agriculteur et le régulateur qui combine un contrôle aléatoire des pratiques culturales avec des pénalités ou des compensations financières selon le comportement environnemental observé. Ce système d’audit doit reposer sur des indicateurs fiables des caractéristiques hydrologiques, pédologiques et agronomiques des parcelles étudiées. D’un point de vue plus pratique, nous discutons de la fiabilité et de la disponibilité de tels indicateurs dans le cadre spécifique de la pollution de la;nappe phréatique d’Alsace par les activités agricoles et nous évoquons la politique de contrôle mise en place dans des zones de captage de l’eau dans le BadeWurtemberg en Allemagne.

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  • Spaeter, Sandrine & Verchère, Alban, 2004. "Aléa moral et politiques d’audit optimales dans le cadre de la pollution d’origine agricole de l’eau," Cahiers d'Economie et de Sociologie Rurales (CESR), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), vol. 71.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:inrace:202650
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.202650
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Environmental Economics and Policy;

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D62 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Externalities
    • Q18 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Policy; Food Policy; Animal Welfare Policy
    • Q25 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Water

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