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Abstract
We provide a new approach for assessing the cost of marginal ecosystem changes and the
effectiveness of green payment schemes. The approach is based on a theoretical and empirical analysis of the bio-economic production interactions between marketed outputs and non-marketed ecosystem
services at the micro level. To frame the economic nature of the problem, we employ a generalized joint production model in combination with cost minimization. The generalized joint production framework allows for the consideration of complementary, substitutive and competitive relationships between agricultural production and non-marketed ecosystem services generation and avoids double
counting. From this theoretical model we distinguish three theoretical cases depending on the imposed minimum acceptable level of the non-marketed ecosystem services. We employ farm level panel data
for the UK to empirically investigate these cases. More specifically, to represent and evaluate the production structure, we estimate first- and second-order elasticities derived from a flexible
transformation function. Results show that the majority of farms produce agricultural output and ecosystem services in a complementary relationship. Generation of multiple ecosystem services on the same farm showed either a substitutive or competitive relationship. Changing the composition of the
ecosystem services output would have very different implications for individual farms.