Policy mix analysis has been applied in research on energy, climate, urban and transport policy, and more recently biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services. However, policy mix analysis has thus far been employed at a high conceptual level, focusing on describing interactions between instrument types. Policy mix analysis rarely describes instrument ‘structure’ or functional characteristics in a way that would answer the question ‘what constitutes an instrument’? We describe how the rules‐in‐use taxonomy of the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework, developed for research on common pool resource management, can be used to characterize conservation policy instrument interactions. We demonstrate the approach on the well‐known payments for ecosystem services (PES) program in Costa Rica and cross‐compliance policies, arguing that PES is a policy mix rather than a single economic instrument. Our analysis shows how design features of PES described in the economics literature map to ‘rules‐in‐use’ in the IAD framework. The framework provides a terminology for defining what constitutes institutional context, comparing economic, regulatory and information instruments, and studying their interactions. The rules‐in‐use taxonomy of IAD is a ‘structural’ diagnostic approach, which needs to be combined with other tools that analyse the role and ‘agency’ of actors, as part of integrative environmental governance research. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

The objective of this research is to identify and quantify the motivations for organic grain farming in the United States. Survey data of US organic grain producers were used in regression models to find the statistical determinants of three motivations for organic grain production, including profit maximization, environmental stewardship, and an organic lifestyle. Results provide evidence that many organic grain producers had more than a single motivation and that younger farmers are more likely to be motivated by environmental and lifestyle goals than older farmers. Organic grain producers exhibited a diversity of motivations, including profit and stewardship.

This review tests the conventional wisdom that U.S. marketing orders act as profit-maximizing cartels. It analyzes the marketing order for U.S. almonds in both the domestic and export markets. Such a case study is relevant to all U.S. marketing orders because the size and scope of the U.S. almond industry and the authority granted to a board of producers by the almond marketing order would seem to be conducive to profit-maximizing cartel behavior. Nevertheless, the authors find that the market power exerted by the Almond Board of California is significantly less than would be expected from a profit-maximizing cartel. [EconLit citations: L120, L430]. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Agribusiness 20: 1-15, 2004.