The role of environmental and land transaction regulations on agricultural land price: The example of the French region Brittany

In this paper, we investigate how environmental and land transaction regulations influence the price of agricultural plots sold in France. We use data from individual transactions for the period 1994-2010 in the NUTS2 region Brittany. Estimations were performed both ignoring and accounting for spatial interactions (model SARAR). Regressions on three sub-samples of buyers were performed in order to assess whether different buyers have different attitudes or plans regarding the purchased farmland: a sub-sample including only farmer buyers; a sub-sample including non-farmer individual buyers and; a sub-sample including non-farmer non-individual buyers. Results indicate that the price of land is lower when buyers are farmers, that the nitrate surplus area zoning increases the price of land, even more so for farmer buyers. Regarding land transaction regulations, there is a negative effect, on land price, of the purchaser being the current tenant or being the land regulating public body SAFER. Estimating the model on different sub-samples depending on the buyers’ type sheds light on the factors which are more important for each type.