Professor and Associate Chairperson

Scott Swinton is an agricultural and environmental economist who teaches applied microeconomics and coordinates the Department's graduate program. His economic research focuses on agriculture as a managed ecosystem, focusing on management and policy analysis for enhanced ecosystem services. He concentrates on problems involving bioenergy crop production, crop pest and nutrient management, precision agriculture, resource conservation, and management of risks to human health and income. Besides his work on U.S. farming, he is engaged in research on agricultural and natural resource management in Latin America and Africa.

Professional Interests

• Design of incentives to induce adoption of environmentally beneficial farming technologies
• Valuation of ecosystem services linked to agriculture
• Design of sustainable bioenergy production systems
• Spatial data analysis methods
• Environmental economic impact analysis
• Assessment of alternative pest and nutrient management policies and practices

Selected Publications

Ma, S. and S.M. Swinton. 2012. “Hedonic Valuation of Farmland Using Sale Prices versus Appraised Values.” Land Economics 88(1): (In press).

Swinton, S.M., B.A. Babcock, L.K. James and V. Bandaru. 2011. “Higher U.S. Crop Prices Trigger Little Area Expansion so Marginal Land for Biofuel Crops Is Limited.” Energy Policy (Published online, 6/12/11.)

Ma, S. and S.M. Swinton. 2011. “Valuation of Ecosystem Services from Rural Landscapes Using Agricultural Land Prices.” Ecological Economics 70(9): 1649-1659.

Song, F., J. Zhao and S.M. Swinton. 2011. “Switching to Perennial Energy Crops under Uncertainty and Costly Reversibility.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 93(3): 768-783.

Okello, J.J. and S.M. Swinton. 2010. “From Circle of Poison to Circle of Virtue: Pesticides, Export Standards and Kenya’s Green Bean Farmers.” Journal of Agricultural Economics 61(2): 209-224.

Zhang, W., W. van der Werf and S.M. Swinton. 2010. “Spatially Optimal Habitat Management for Enhancing Natural Control of an Invasive Agricultural Pest: Soybean Aphid.” Resource and Energy Economics 32: 551-565.

Zhang, W. and S.M. Swinton. 2009. “Incorporating Natural Enemies in an Economic Threshold for Dynamically Optimal Pest Management.” Ecological Modelling 220(9-10): 1315-1324.

Landis, D.A., M.M. Gardiner, W. van der Werf, and S.M. Swinton. 2008. “Increasing Corn for Biofuel Production Reduces Biocontrol Services in Agricultural Landscapes.” PNAS: Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 105(51): 20552-20557.

Labarta, R.A., D.S. White and S.M. Swinton 2008. “Does Charcoal Production Slow Agricultural Expansion into the Peruvian Amazon Rainforest?” World Development 36(3): 527-540.

Swinton, S.M., F. Lupi, G.P. Robertson and S.K. Hamilton 2007. “Ecosystem Services and Agriculture: Cultivating Agricultural Ecosystems for Diverse Benefits.” Ecological Economics 64(2): 245-252.

Liu, Y., S.M. Swinton, and N.R. Miller 2006. “Is Site-specific Yield Response Consistent over Time? Does it Pay?” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 88(2): 471-483.

Robertson, G.P. and S.M. Swinton 2005. “Reconciling Agricultural Productivity and Environmental Integrity: A Grand Challenge for Agriculture.” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 3(1): 38-46.

Funded Research Projects

• "Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center," U.S. Department of Energy, 2007-12. Economics of sustainable energy biomass production technology.
• “Long Term Ecological Research in Row-crop Agriculture,” National Science Foundation, 2010-15. Economic valuation of agroecosystem services.