Publication
Lee, H., Kwon, O.S. (2021). "Estimating the Substitution Effects of the Reusable Trash Bags for the Standard Trash Bags". Journal of Environmental Policy and Administration, 29(3), 49-75. https://doi.org/10.15301/jepa.2021.29.3.49
Policy & Extension Publications
Lee, H., D.M. Lagos-Kutz, and D.A. Hennessy. 2026. "Regional Pest Monitoring as Agricultural Information Infrastructure: Evidence from two decades of Suction Trap Network data." Agricultural Policy Review Spring 2026. Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, Iowa State University.
Lee, H., E.W. Hodgson, D.M. Lagos-Kutz, and D.A. Hennessy. 2025. "Soybean Aphid and Changing Pesticide Usage in Iowa." Agricultural Policy Review Fall 2025. Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, Iowa State University.
https://agpolicyreview.card.iastate.edu/fall-2025/soybean-aphid-and-changing-pesticide-use-iowa
Under Review
"Why Don’t Farmers Always Follow IPM? Economics of Pest Scouting and Information Acquisition" with David A. Hennessy (Job Market Paper)
Abstract: Threshold-based integrated pest management (IPM) has been promoted for decades, yet adoption has fallen short of stated policy goals. Threshold rules indicate when to treat once pest information is available, but not whether acquiring it is worth the cost. We model scouting as acquisition of a costly, imperfect signal. Scouting is privately worthwhile when the signal can change treatment, and its expected value covers scouting cost. Calibrated with untreated soybean aphid trials and Iowa economic data, information can change treatment in 12 of 56 plot-seasons, and in 11 of those its value covers scouting cost. Information can change treatment over a narrow range of aphid densities, and most observed pest paths never enter it. Counterfactuals show that lower-cost monitoring technologies make scouting more affordable, greater signal accuracy expands decision-relevant conditions, and treatment-cost wedges, such as pesticide taxes, reallocate scouting incentives. The practical reach of threshold-based IPM therefore depends on both the treatment rule and the economics of acquiring the information needed to apply it.
Work in Progress
"Official Measures of Land Quality and Farmland Values: Evidence from Iowa's CSR2 Reform" with Rabail Chandio and David A. Hennessy
Abstract: This paper examines whether changes in measured land productivity affect farmland values. In 2013, Iowa introduced Corn Suitability Rating 2 (CSR2), replacing a widely used measure of soil productivity. The revision changed reported productivity ratings without altering the physical characteristics of farmland. Using county-level farmland value surveys, individual survey responses, and farmland transaction data, we investigate how farmland values respond to these revisions. Changes in reported productivity may influence land valuations through market perceptions of land quality or institutional uses of the ratings, including property tax assessments. This study examines whether changes in how asset quality is measured and reported can affect market values independently of changes in the underlying asset.
"Conservation Capital and Farmland Values" with David A. Hennessy
Abstract: This paper studies how farmland prices capitalize conservation practices when future owners can change management. A common interpretation is that higher land values under practices such as no-till reflect the present value of their future benefits. When management can be adjusted after land is transferred, current management status need not have an independent effect on land value. We develop a dynamic framework that separates adjustable management choices from what past management leaves behind. Past conservation can build durable productive capital and reveal information about how a parcel responds to conservation, while future owners retain the option to change management. We use the framework to examine when observed land-value differences reflect these inherited benefits rather than the value of the current practice itself. The paper provides a basis for interpreting what conservation-related land-price differences can reveal about the economic value of conservation.
"Corn Tar Spot Management: Scouting and Spraying" with David A. Hennessy
"When Pest Control Loses Its Target: Insecticide Use After the Soybean Aphid Boom" with David A. Hennessy
Presented at the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association Annual Meeting (2026, poster). https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.404683
"Insurance and Learning about Self-Protection: Evidence from Conservation Reserve Program." with Hongseok Kim