It has been shown in previous studies that transaction costs (TC) of agri-environmental policy measures often are very large both in absolute terms and as a share of payments. As agri-environmental policy measures make up an increasingly large share of agricultural policies, not least within the European Union, it is becoming ever more important to improve the knowledge about the factors determining the level of transaction costs. This paper investigates the TC determinants of one Swedish agri-environmental policy measure. More specifically, it aims to investigate if the level of TC is attributable to economic factors, such as pasture density and distances, or if political factors, such as lobby groups and political majorities at the county level, influence the costs. To evaluate if the results are robust with respect to alterations in model specifications, a version of the extreme bounds analysis is applied. Although initial results indicate that political parties influence the level of transaction costs, the extreme bounds analysis reveals that those results are fragile. It shows that five of the economic variables are robust with respect to model specifications, but none of the political variables is.

The efficiency of solving of the state environmental protection policy and implementation of the environmental problems are closely related to identification of the existing problems of the environmental protection in a definite territory. In the rural territories this process depends on the process of agricultural production. In the society, alongside with the opinion about necessity of sustainable development there is also an opinion that the primary goal is to attain total economic increase even if it can damage the environment itself. Analyzing definite indices of the effect of agriculture on the environment, it is possible to evaluate changes in the development of the branch and the environmental condition as well as their mutual interrelation.

The study deals with the rural landscape management in Latvia and presents a survey of the current situation in landscape planning and nature protection. It also gives a brief theoretical description of the landscape concept and its development and management. Impact of agriculture, forestry and rural tourism on landscape is analysed through the view on the state politics in these spheres. The author evaluates current situation in environmental politics, informs about environmental law, nature protection and preservation system and spatial planning. The author also draws conslusions and offers her suggestions how to improve the landscape management system basing on comparison between the current situation in landscape management and goals set by the national environment conservation plan (1995).