do buyers characteristics and personal relationships affect agricultural land prices the influence of buyer and personal relationship characteristics on agricultural land prices has received little attention in the literature recently perry and robison 2001 used a restricted nonlinear specification to model the influence of personal relationships on the implicit prices of land characteristics in this paper a more flexible alternative model is proposed an approach to general model specification and model selection is presented the results indicate that buyer characteristics and personal relationships exert nonuniform effects on the implicit prices of land characteristics our results support the hypothesis that social capital affects the terms of trade in the land market

the long term consequences of resource based specialisation using geological variation in oil abundance in the southern us i examine the long term effects of resource based specialisation through economic channels in 1890 oil abundant counties were similar to other nearby counties but after oil was discovered they began to specialise in its production from 1940 90 oil abundance increased local employment per square kilometre especially in mining but also in manufacturing oil abundant counties had higher population growth higher per capita income and better infrastructure 2010 the author s the economic journal 2010 royal economic society

the impact of ethanol plants on surrounding farmland values a case study the expansion of the corn ethanol industry after 2003 increased corn prices throughout the united states and in some cases prices were shown to be higher with proximity to individual ethanol plants this leads to the hypothesis that the value of farmland in close proximity to ethanol plants is higher than comparable farmland located farther away this hypothesis was explored by examining the sale of 961 farmland parcels during 2004 2008 in the vicinity of two corn ethanol plants in northeastern nebraska hedonic models including land characteristics as well as spatial and plant proximity measures failed to show support for the hypothesis

urban sprawl and farmland prices a theoretical model of farmland valuation is developed to explicitly account for three effects of urban sprawl conversion of farmland to urban uses effect on agricultural returns and speculative effect as represented by farmland conversion risk this model is estimated using county level data in the continental united states evidence is found for all three effects of urban sprawl on farmland values counties more accessible to major urban centers have higher net agricultural returns subsidiary evidence supports that the latter effect may be attributed to survival of or conversion to high valued agriculture around urban centers

dynamics of a rural land market experiencing farmland conversion to acreages the case of saunders county nebraska this study analyzes an urban influenced real estate market that is experiencing land use transitions evaluating a three year period of unimproved real estate sales in saunders county nebraska has identified components that contribute to farmland values applying these components illustrates that buyers having special motivations often pay premiums to obtain agricultural land a model based on farmland productivity determines a crossover point where it becomes economically justifiable to convert farmland into acreage tracts illustrating productivity levels where concerns over development hold merit areas experiencing farmland development will obtain valuable information for land use and planning decisions from applying this research

boom bust cycles and ricardian rent north american agriculture has been characterized by many as a boom bust industry for example between 1973 and 1983 prairie farmers experienced the most prosperous period of grain farming ever known in western canada had the golden age finally arrived for prairie agriculture prosperity came to a grinding halt in the mid 1980s and in the late 1980s prairie grain farmers entered into one of the worst economic situ

an analysis of growth of u s farmland prices 1963 82 increases in expected inflation or real growth in net rental income to land have been proposed as alternative explanations of the dramatic real growth in u s farmland prices in the 1970s in this paper the effect of inflation is shown to be theoretically ambiguous an empirical analysis using u s and international farmland prices suggests that most of the real land price growth can be explained by real growth in net rental income to land increases in expected inflation have had a negative effect on real land prices but the effect of inflation has been comparatively small

weakly relative poverty prevailing measures of relative poverty are unchanged when all incomes grow or contract by the same proportion this property stems from seemingly implausible assumptions about the disutility of relative deprivation and the cost of social inclusion the authors propose weakly relative lines that relax these assumptions on calibrating our measures to national poverty lines and survey data we find that half the population of the developing world in 2005 lived in poverty only half of whom were absolutely poor the total number of poor rose over 1981 to 2005 despite falling numbers of absolutely poor with sustained economic growth the incidence of relative poverty became less responsive to further growth the number of relatively poor rose just as the numbers of absolutely poor fell

the distributional effects of local labor demand and industrial mix estimates using individual panel data abstract this paper finds that increases in local labor demand have significant progressive effects on the income distribution and significantly reduce poverty the anti poverty effects of stronger demand have not lessened in recent years local labor demand s benefits are particularly great for younger less educated men labor demand s benefits are similar for blacks and whites and men and women the paper also finds that shifts in the local industrial mix toward manufacturing or other high wage industries do not have progressive effects and do not reduce poverty

the impacts of the tax deferred exchange provision on farm real estate values this study examines the effects of the section 1031 tax deferred exchange provision on agricultural land values the provision allows taxpayers to defer taxation for relinquished productive assets if a like kind asset is acquired within the allotted time of 180 days the analysis examines a set of 3 580 farm real estate transaction from 55 agricultural counties in indiana over the period 2003 2006 hedonic price analysis suggests that properties acquired under a like kind exchange are associated with a 1 32 price premium jel h23 q15

natural resource booms and inequality theory and evidence we develop a theory in the context of a two sector growth model in which learning by doing drives growth to explain the time path of income inequality following natural resource booms in resource rich countries under the condition of a relatively unskilled labor intensive non traded sector inequality falls immediately after a boom and then increases steadily over time until the initial impact of the boom disappears using data for 90 countries between 1965 and 1999 we find evidence in support of the theory especially for oil and mineral booms we also find that uncertainty about future commodity prices increases long run inequality

selection on observed and unobserved variables assessing the effectiveness of catholic schools in this paper we measure the effect of catholic high school attendance on educational attainment and test scores because we do not have a good instrumental variable for catholic school attendance we develop new estimation methods based on the idea that the amount of selection on the observed explanatory variables in a model provides a guide to the amount of selection on the unobservables we also propose an informal way to assess selectivity bias based on measuring the ratio of selection on unobservables to selection on observables that would be required if one is to attribute the entire effect of catholic school attendance to selection bias we use our methods to estimate the effect of attending a catholic high school on a variety of outcomes our main conclusion is that catholic high schools substantially increase the probability of graduating from high school and more tentatively attending college we find little evidence of an effect on test scores

the economic impact of the coal boom and bust in this paper we examine the impact of the coal boom in the 1970s and the subsequent coal bust in the 1980s on local labour markets in kentucky ohio pennsylvania and west virginia we address two main questions in our analysis how were non mining sectors affected by the shocks to the mining sector how did these effects differ between sectors producing local goods and those producing traded goods we find evidence of modest employment spillovers into sectors with locally traded goods but not into sectors with nationally traded goods

vegetable spirits and energy policy this study investigates the extent to which the 2005 energy policy act specifically the ethanol mandate contributed to the rise in farmland values we use the location of new ethanol plants to identify the capitalization effect of the mandate by these spatially advantaged operations we use a difference in difference propensity score matching estimator to control for the non random selection of ethanol production facilities the empirical strategy uses farmland parcel values from the 2001 7 june agriculture survey we find that new ethanol facilities had no effect on nearby farmland values prior to the mandate but had statistically significant effects after the policy copyright 2013 oxford university press

factors influencing illinois farmland values a hedonic model of illinois farmland values is estimated using county level cross section time series data explanatory variables include land productivity parcel size improvements distances to chicago and other large cities an urban rural index livestock production through swine operation scale and farm density measures population density income and inflation the inclusion of spatial and serial correlation components substantially improves the model fit farmland values decline with parcel size ruralness distance to chicago and large cities and swine farm density and increase with soil productivity population density and personal income

understanding farmland price changes this paper develops a structural model of land prices which includes the multidimensional effects of inflation on capital erosion savings return erosion and real debt reduction as well as the effect of changes in the opportunity cost of capital the results show that inflation and changes in the real returns on capital are major explanatory factors in farmland price swings in addition to returns to farming additionally the effects of credit market constraints and expectations schemes are considered explicitly in the analytical model

does a cassava research for development program have impact at the farm level evidence from the democratic republic of congo this paper evaluates the impact of a cassava research for development program on farm level outcomes the program was implemented in the democratic republic of congo from 2001 to 2009 we apply propensity score matching rosenbaum bounds on treatment effects altonji et al method of selection on observables and unobservables and endogenous switching regression to farm survey data collected during the 2009 cropping season we use these methods to test whether the r4d program has a statistically significant effect on outcomes of interest and if these are not driven by selection on unobservables using propensity score matching we find statistically significant positive effects on household participation in cassava markets adoption of improved varieties and crop management practices and household food adequacy and no statistically significant effects on yields and profits the results show that bias due to selection on unobservables is not severe enough to invalidate the impact estimates bias may still be a problem that is present in the analysis but there is evidence that it is not substantial although the program does not have a statistically significant positive effect on yields and profits the significant program effects on market participation variety adoption and food adequacy merit further promotion of the program since these positive outcomes tend to be pre conditions for realizing long term yield and profit benefits

the distributional impacts of an energy boom in western canada in the energy rich region of western canada inequality rose over the past two decades while poverty declined begging the question of whether the recent energy boom was a contributing factor this study uses measures of inequality and poverty across local labor markets that vary in energy extraction intensity to identify these distributional impacts the evidence shows that overall the boom increased inequality and decreased poverty there are however a few notable cases where these relationships are reversed the significance and relative magnitude of growth across and between distributional segments were consistent with these findings

booming sector and de industrialisation in a small open economy this paper presents a theoretical analysis of the dutch disease the phenomenon whereby a boom in one traded goods sector squeezes porfitability in other traded goods sectors both by directly bi

the effects of a natural gas boom on employment and income in colorado texas and wyoming improvements in technology have made it profitable to tap unconventional gas reservoirs in relatively impermeable shale and sandstone deposits which are spread throughout the u s mostly in rural areas proponents of gas drilling point to the activity s local economic benefits yet no empirical studies have systematically documented the magnitude or distribution of economic gains i estimate these gains for counties in colorado texas and wyoming three states where natural gas production expanded substantially since the late 1990s i find that a large increase in the value of gas production caused modest increases in employment wage and salary income and median household income the results suggest that each million dollars in gas production created 2 35 jobs in the county of production which led to an annualized increase in employment that was 1 5 of the pre boom level for the average gas boom county comparisons show that ex ante estimates of the number of jobs created by developing the fayetteville and marcellus shale gas formations may have been too large

local labor market impacts of energy boom bust boom in western canada abstract the impacts of energy price boom and bust are analyzed through the differential growth in employment and earnings between local labor markets with and without energy resources in western canada the estimated differentials attributed to the boom induced labor demand shocks show significant direct and indirect impacts on the earnings and employment within the energy extraction and other non energy local sectors respectively the local job multipliers indicate that job creation within the energy extraction sector leads to modest job creation within the non energy local sectors during boom periods for every ten energy extraction jobs created during a boom period approximately three construction jobs two retail jobs and four and a half service jobs are created

the changing roles of urban influence and agricultural productivity in farmland price determination between 2000 and 2010 inflation adjusted u s farmland values increased by over 80 this period of rapid price appreciation coincided with both the agricultural commodity price boom and the broader financial crisis this paper examines the degree to which the determinants of farmland prices changed over this period using a panel of farmland transfer declarations from 98 illinois counties hedonic price analysis demonstrates that the relative importance of urban influence decreased over this period while the relative importance of agricultural productivity increased the study carries important implications for farmers farmland owners and policy makers

does natural resource abundance increase latin american income inequality abstract why is income inequality higher in latin america than in east asia is this phenomenon related to the region s natural resource abundance is it a contributor to latin america s slow and narrowly focused human capital accumulation if so can anything be done to reverse the latin american trends or should we think of the region s fate as unalterable to help answer these questions this paper draws upon standard trade theory and cross sectional empirical analysis to demonstrate that natural resource intensive sectors particularly permanent agriculture absorb capital that might otherwise flow to manufacturing this depresses workers incentive to accumulate skill and delays industrialization

factors influencing kansas agricultural farm land values land transactions typically involve a substantial investment of time and money for parties involved in the sale because of the size of the investment and infrequency of purchases sales significant personal interaction between buyer and seller often results in this study farmland sales in 104 of 105 kansas counties from 1986 2000 were examined to quantify the influence of personal relationships and changes over time transactions between related parties resulted in a 43 discount on the per acre sales price results indicated that social capital effects have increased over time with the discount on sales between related parties growing 2 per year

changes in wage inequality in canada an interprovincial perspective this paper uses the canadian labour force survey to understand why the level and dispersion of wages have evolved differently across provinces from 1997 to 2013 the faster increase in the level of wages and the decline in wage dispersion in newfoundland saskatchewan and alberta are the starkest interprovincial differences we find that they are accounted for by the growth in the extractive resources sectors which benefited less educated and younger workers the most increases in minimum wages since 2005 are found to be the main reason why wages at the very bottom grew more than those in the middle of the distribution

an empirical examination of the relationship between mining employment and poverty in the appalachian region we empirically examine the relationship between the share of employment in the mining sector and poverty rates in appalachian counties of the united states using panel data we decompose the effect of an increase in a sector s employment share i e mining manufacturing agriculture services and construction to identify an immediate and lag effect with regard to the mining sector the empirical results suggest that the immediate effect reduces poverty rates while the lag effect is associated with increases in the poverty rate we assess these results in the context of previous literature that examines the relationship between resource intensive economies and economic development

local labor markets and natural resources a synthesis of the literature a primary way that natural resources affect a locality is through the demand for labor with greater extraction requiring more workers shifts in labor demand can be measured through changes in employment and earnings the main labor market outcomes or through changes in the population and income more generally these changes may spillover into the nonresource economy leading to greater overall effects or possibly crowd out be spread unequally across the population thereby altering the distribution of income and the poverty rate or influence educational attainment as people choose between additional schooling and work in this review the literature linking natural resources to local labor markets is synthesized by organizing existing studies according to their resource measurement and the outcomes that they consider this synthesis provides an accessible guide to a literature that has boomed in recent years it also identifies promising avenues for future research and lays a foundation to further generalize the evidence through an eventual meta analysis

amenity benefits and the optimal allocation of land agricultural land often yields sig nificant amenity benefits that may not be re flected in the prevailing allocation of land be tween agricultural and nonagricultural uses this paper introduces a simple supply demand model that incorporates these benefits in the de termination of optimal land allocation three stage least squares and county level data are used to estimate the supply and demand param eters these estimates confirm the plausibility of the conceptual model results from the con tingent valuation literature illustrate the extent of underallocation of land to agriculture due to existing institutional conditions some correc tive measures and their distributional effects are discussed and quantified jel q24

income distribution development and foreign trade a cross sectional analysis abstract this paper analyses cross sectional evidence on income inequality in developing countries within a consistent theoretical framework where the major explanatory variables are factor endowments their ownership structure and foreign trade distortions the resulting explanation of cross country differences in income distribution is considerably better than what is found in the existing literature endowments in mineral resources land concentration in agricultural exports trade protection and secondary schooling are shown to be major determinants of differences in income inequality across developing countries

the effect of agricultural policy on farmland values the extent to which agricultural support programs have been capitalized into farmland prices has been examined in this study a present value land price model was developed which decomposes returns to the land base into its two possible sources farm production and government subsidies and allows the discount rates associated with these two income sources to vary the empirical results indicate that government payments are discounted less than marketbased returns in ontario thus government payments have been viewed as a more stable source of income to ontario farm operators during the last half century than market based returns

poverty in canada and the united states measurement trends and implications although canada and the united states are two of the richest countries in the world many canadians and americans perceive themselves and are perceived by others to be poor which raises the issue of how best to measure poverty within canada there are widespread worries that the self image of canada as a place with relatively little poverty somewhat kinder and gentler than the united states may be a bit outdated see graves dugas and beauchamp 1999 angus reid 1999 poverty in canada has been rising while in the united states it has been falling in recent years which raises the issues of why that has been happening and what it will mean in the longer term for canada and the united states as a whole in this paper therefore i begin by asking how poverty in affluent countries should be measured before examining recent evidence on poverty intensity and its social significance in section 1 the use of the sen shorrocks thon index of poverty intensity is advocated and the poverty box is introduced as a summary graphical representation in section 2 recent data are presented on poverty in europe and north america and it is noted that between 1994 and 1997 canadian provinces became quite similar to many u s states in poverty intensity a fixed effects model is used in section 3 to examine whether changes in trade exposure the unemployment rate unemployment insurance and social assistance are significant determi

estimating overall returns to international agricultural research in africa through benefit cost analysis a best evidence approach this study offers a best evidence approach to summarizing recent benefit cost analyses of international agricultural research in africa first from an extensive literature review and the resulting global inventory of impact studies 23 studies are identified that calculate aggregate rates of return for consultative group on international agricultural research cgiar and partner investments in sub saharan africa ssa these studies are then appraised against a review framework consisting of principles criteria and indicators for study rigor subsequently the economic benefits reported by studies grouped on the basis of its analytical rigor are aggregated and set against total investment by the cgiar and national agricultural research systems to determine if the total investment to date can be justified by documented benefits under a range of assumptions as a result the study finds that aggregate investment is justified under a fairly wide range of suppositions under all scenarios the vast majority of documented benefits stem from a relatively limited array of activities with a majority of benefits stemming from biological control 80 close to 20 of total benefits result from crop genetic improvement and less than 1 result from all other activities the implications of these results for research investment strategies in ssa and impact assessment are discussed

natural resource curse and poverty in appalachian america the appalachian mountain region has long been characterized by deep poverty which led to the formation of the appalachian regional commission arc in 1965 the arc region covers west virginia and parts of 12 other states running from new york to mississippi ziliak 2012 the arc region had an average county poverty rate of over 40 percent in 1960 about double the national average deaton and niman 2012 ziliak 2012 while the poverty gap between the arc region and the rest of the nation closed significantly by 1990 it remained nearly twice as large in central appalachia there are many reasons for higher poverty in appalachia in general and central appalachia in particular possible causes include a low paying industry structure below average education low household mobility and remoteness from to cities weber et al 2005 partridge and rickman 2005 lobao 2004 a key distinction between central appalachia and the rest of the arc region is its historic dependence on coal mining there is long literature arguing that the area s dependence on coal mining has contributed to its deep poverty through weaker local governance entrepreneurship and educational attainment as well as degrading the environment poor health outcomes and limitations on other economic opportunities deaton and niman 2012 james and aadland 2011 these factors are broadly associated with the natural resources curse in the international development literature more recently the process of mountain top mining mtm has expanded coal mining s environmental footprint in the region possibly increasing health risks and further reducing the chances for long term amenity led growth that can alleviate poverty deller 2010 woods and gordon 2011 this study reinvestigates the causes of county poverty rates in appalachia with a special focus on coal mining s role using data over the 1990 2010 period we assess whether coal mining continues to have a positive association with poverty rates even as the industry s relative size has declined we also appraise whether mtm is associated with higher poverty we do this by comparing the arc region to the rest of the u s and by using more disaggregated employment data that allows us to differentiate the effects of coal mining from other mining versus aggregating all mining together as in past research the results suggest that any potential adverse effects of coal mining on poverty have declined over time below we first develop an empirical model followed by the empirical results the final section provides our concluding thoughts

econometric modeling of the capitalization formula for farmland prices an econometric model is formulated to explain the dynamic behavior in farmland prices a second order rational distributed lag on net crop share rents received by landlords captures the dynamic movements of prices and performs well in conditional post sample forecasts the adjustment path of land prices in response to a perturbation in rents is a protracted dampened cycle the implicitly estimated tax free capitalization rate on rent associated with equilibrium land price is 4 0 neither the expected rate of inflation nor an exponential trend on rent expectations has a significant effect on land prices