"Awareness of the link between diet and health has led to an interest from consumers, the food industry, and policymakers in the health properties of foods. Food industry innovations are emerging that enhance the health attributes of foods. Recent scientific evidence has linked the consumption of foods high in trans fatty acids with elevated cholesterol levels and a higher incidence of coronary heart disease. Foods that reduce the risk of chronic diseases have potential social welfare benefits. This article values the potential health benefits of a healthy food: a trans fat-free canola oil. Using a range of assumptions about the extent to which a trans fat-free canola oil will substitute for existing oils, the paper shows how two alternative methods of computing reductions in the cost of illness reveal nontrivial benefits to society. Policy implications and suggestions for further research are discussed." Copyright 2007 Canadian Agricultural Economics Society.

Conservation auctions (CA) are typically employed to increase the provision of Ecological Goods and Services (EG&S) for achieving environmental goals. This paper examines the ability of a CA to meet an environmental target. Previous research on this topic used the number of contracts as a target rather than some specified environmental goal. We used experimental economic methods benchmarked to a wetlands restoration case study to examine a target constraint that must be met by bidders rather than a budget constraint. However, since no budget constraint is employed, agencies with limited resources might have to use other auction design procedures to ensure that financial outlays to pay winning bidders are not too high while meeting the target. Accordingly we utilized a reserve price experimental treatment to address this question. The research compares the various levels of budget and target approaches focusing on efficiency, environmental improvements, and rent seeking metrics.

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Le rejet de nutriants dans les bassins hydrographiques est l'un des impacts possibles de l'élevage. Dans cette étude, nous examinons, à l'aide de méthodes d'économique expérimentale, l'efficacité des enchères inversées comme moyen de réduire ces rejets. Nous avons établi nos paramètres expérimentaux en nous basant sur une pratique utilisée dans un bassin du Manitoba et reconnue pour ses bons résultats. Grâce à ces paramètres, nous avons analysé trois règles de sélection des offres et deux règles de prix. Nos résultats montrent que la pratique utilisée au Manitoba donne d'aussi bons résultats quand les cibles fixées sont liées au bétail que quand elles correspondent à des objectifs de réduction des rejets sur les fermes. Les enchères qui maximisent la participation des producteurs donnent de piètres résultats aux niveaux tant environnemental qu'économique. Et la règle du prix unique donne de meilleurs résultats que la règle du prix discriminatoire. Mots clés : enchères inversées, enchères de conservation, pollution de sources non localisées, instruments reposant sur les mécanismes du marchéThis study uses experimental economic methods to examine the efficacy of reverse auctions to generate efficient nutrient abatement from livestock operations. The experimental parameters were benchmarked to a specific beneficial management practice in a Manitoba watershed and were used to examine three bidselection rules and two pricing rules. The results suggest that targeting livestock with the practice performed almost as well as targeting specific abatement levels at the farm level. Auctions that maximized participation of producers fared poorly on both environmental and economic outcome measures. The uniform-price rule was found to be superior to the discriminative-pricing rule.