The problem of targeting CRP purchases to buy environmental amenities under productivity and environmental heterogeneity is considered. Gini coefficients and Lorenz curves are used to measure the effectiveness of spending under alternative targeting criteria. The environmental benefits...

This nation-scale, watershed-level analysis focuses on the major trends and the spatial pattern of land use and the impact on watershed health. We estimate a simultaneous equation system to analyze the impact of land use on aquatic health in watersheds across the United States.

A leading cause of biodiversity decline is the habitat destruction associated with urban development. We use a database of county-level land use regulations to analyze the effects of local land use regulations on land use changes. We use the results of this analysis and a species-habitat...

In this paper we develop a simple economic model to analyze the use of a policy that combines a voluntary approach to controlling nonpoint-source pollution with a background threat of an ambient tax if the voluntary approach is unsuccessful in meeting a pre-specified environmental goal. We first...

This paper analyzes the fiscal and land value impacts of public open-space conservation in a budget-constrained city. It derives the necessary and sufficient conditions for open-space conservation to increase the level of municipal services and the total land value within the city. The...

What do economists know about land-and how they know? The Oxford Handbook of Land Economics describes the latest developments in the fields of economics that examine land, including natural resource economics, environmental economics, regional science, and urban economics. The handbook argues,...

The emergence of urban-rural space, as evidenced by the expansion of low-density exurban areas and growth of amenity-based rural areas, is characterized by the merging of a rural landscape form with urban economic function. Changing economic conditions, including waning transportation and...

This paper evaluates the effects of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) on land values. A theoretical model is presented to analyze the interaction between farmers’ CRP participation decisions and land values. Empirical models are estimated to evaluate the effects of the CRP on land values....