Administrative valuation of Soviet agricultural land : results using Lithuanian production data

New land tenure arrangements in the USSR require that agricultural producers pay for land use. The current distorted pricing system and the absence of functioning land markets complicate land valuation, and slow the adoption of new property relations. In a market economy that functions well, agricultural land would earn its approximate marginal value product in agricultural production. This value can be measured empirically from production data and can serve as an appropriate initial value for users'fees. The author estimates marginal value products for land for 1,032 collective and state farms in Lithuania using farm-level data for 1986 and 1987 and compares the marginal value products derived from actual received producer prices with those derived from border prices with alternative assumed exchange rates for the ruble.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Markets and Market Access,Access to Markets,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems

Integrating Farmer Decision-Making to Target Land Retirement Programs

This paper develops a model to examine the impacts of uncertainty about crop production and irreversibility of program participation on determining land rental payments and least-cost land retirement targeting in the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program. Results show that under risk aversion only, the marginal cost of abatement and the average land rental payment are less than those under risk neutrality. However, under uncertainty and irreversibility, the marginal cost and the average land rental payment are considerably higher than those under risk neutrality or risk aversion only. It is important to incorporate uncertainty and irreversibility into the design of land rental payments and in determining participation constraints.Farm Management, Land Economics/Use,

PROPOSALS FOR THE EU ON THE 'MID-TERM REVIEW OF CAP OF AGENDA 2000' WITH EMPHASIS ON THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

How agricultural policies affect the environment is within ecological economics. The EU Commission `Mid-Term Review of CAP of Agenda 2000' of July 2002 proposed to separate production from direct payments, so that farmers would fully compete in the market, without gearing production to the trade-distorting subsidies. The decoupled direct payment to each farm will be conditional upon cross-compliance with the environmental, food safety, animal health and welfare, and occupational safety standards. MTR maintains extra set-aside payment for normal land to avoid overproduction, but no longer for marginal land. This paper suggests not to set aside normal land, because overproduction would be prevented by decoupling; normal land is less environmentally sensitive, and the direct payment would be enough for farmers to keep it in a good agricultural condition; setting-aside normal land would cost money, and make it unavailable for full-time farmers to achieve economies of scale. It recommends to set aside marginal land which is more environmentally sensitive, and the direct payment may not be enough for farmers to keep it in a good agricultural condition. It advises to gradually convert marginal land back to the nature forever, give a conversion payment to its owners to keep it in a good environmental condition, and pursue non-cereal agriculture and off-farm activities. It advocates a tax on those farmers who refuse to keep a good agricultural or environmental condition on the set aside or converted marginal land for maximally two years, and forced land sale afterwards, which would be less harsh than expropriation.Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy,

MARGINAL AGRICULTURAL LAND CLASSIFICATION: A NEW APPROACH

Land Economics/Use,

MEASURING THE INCOME GENERATING POTENTIAL OF LAND IN RURAL MEXICO

This paper measures the potential of land to generate income and establishes the contexts under which access to land can reduce poverty. Using Mexican household data, we apply nonparametric regression methods to estimate and graphically explore the relationship between land and welfare. Results suggest that the marginal value of land depends on both the complementary and contextual assets of the poor.Land Economics/Use,

The uneasy case for lower Parking Standards

Minimum parking requirements are the norm for urban and suburban development in the United States (Davidson and Dolnick (2002)). The justification for parking space requirements is that overflow parking will occupy nearby street or off-street parking. Shoup (1999) and Willson (1995) provides cases where there is reason to believe that parking space requirements have forced parcel developers to place more parking than they would in the absence of parking requirements. If the effect of parking minimums is to significantly increase the land area devoted to parking, then the increase in impervious surfaces would likely cause water quality degradation, increased flooding, and decreased groundwater recharge. However, to our knowledge the existing literature does not test the effect of parking minimums on the amount of lot space devoted to parking beyond a few case studies. This paper tests the hypothesis that parking space requirements cause an oversupply of parking by examining the implicit marginal value of land allocated to parking spaces. This is an indirect test of the effects of parking requirements that is similar to Glaeser and Gyourko (2003). A simple theoretical model shows that the marginal value of additional parking to the sale price should be equal to the cost of land plus the cost of parking construction. We estimate the marginal values of parking and lot area with spatial methods using a large data set from the Los Angeles area non-residential property sales and find that for most of the property types the marginal value of parking is significantly below that of the parcel area. This evidence supports the contention that minimum parking requirements significantly increase the amount of parcel area devoted to parking. JEL codes:R52, H23Parking, Land Use, Sprawl

The Relationship Between Economically and Environmentally Marginal Land

Concerns have frequently been raised regarding the impact of federally-subsidized crop insurance and agricultural subsidy payments on land allocation and crop mix choices. If the reduction in production risk encourages farmers to plant on economically marginal land, it has often been asserted that this will lead to increases in environmental damage, including increases in soil erosion rates. This paper investigates the "conventional" wisdom that economically marginal land is also environmentally fragile, as defined by higher levels of inherent soil erodibility. We address this issue by looking at the distribution of crop yields for 4 major crops across National Resource Inventory (NRI) erodibility classes and by performing regression analysis. Our results indicate that land with higher levels of soil erodibility exhibit lower mean crop yields, a proxy for economic marginality, which lends support to the conventional wisdom.Environmental Economics and Policy,

Do Parking Requirements Significantly Increase The Area Dedicated To Parking? A Test Of The Effect Of Parking Requirements Values In Los Angeles County

Minimum parking requirements are the norm for urban and suburban development in the United States (Davidson and Dolnick (2002)). The justification for parking space requirements is that overflow parking will occupy nearby street or off-street parking. Shoup (1999) and Willson (1995) provides cases where there is reason to believe that parking space requirements have forced parcel developers to place more parking than they would in the absence of parking requirements. If the effect of parking minimums is to significantly increase the land area devoted to parking, then the increase in impervious surfaces would likely cause water quality degradation, increased flooding, and decreased groundwater recharge. However, to our knowledge the existing literature does not test the effect of parking minimums on the amount of lot space devoted to parking beyond a few case studies. This paper tests the hypothesis that parking space requirements cause an oversupply of parking by examining the implicit marginal value of land allocated to parking spaces. This is an indirect test of the effects of parking requirements that is similar to Glaeser and Gyourko (2003). A simple theoretical model shows that the marginal value of additional parking to the sale price should be equal to the cost of land plus the cost of parking construction. We estimate the marginal values of parking and lot area with spatial methods using a large data set from the Los Angeles area non-residential property sales and find that for most of the property types the marginal value of parking is significantly below that of the parcel area. This evidence supports the contention that minimum parking requirements significantly increase the amount of parcel area devoted to parking.Minimum Parking Requirements; Land Use; Externalities

Sustainable agricultural development strategies in fragile lands:

Current trends in demography, agricultural production and rural environment in the developing countries suggest that so-called "marginal lands" must play a larger and probably growing role in food supply and economic development for the foreseeable future. To fulfill this critical role, public policy towards these lands needs to be revised. A key policy focus should be to strengthen incentives for local land users to not only maintain, but to improve the natural resource base for food and fiber supply. Such "land-improving investments" are needed to reduce production and subsistence risks and permit more intensive use without degradation. Under population and market pressure, one can expect an endogenous process of intensification, through land improvements, tenurial and institutional changes and "re-ordering" of the landscape. But this process is not automatic. Factors influencing the pace and scale of land transformation include: farmer knowledge of degradation of the degrading resource; incentives for long-term investment; capacity to mobilize resources for land investment; level of economic returns to such investment; and factors affecting the formation and function of local groups to help mobilize resources and coordinate landscape-level change. Current policies often work to constrain, rather than support, this process. New research is needed to support policy change for "marginal" lands.Land use Economic aspects., Investments.,

Faktor-Faktor Penentu Tingkat Kemampuan Petani dalam Mengelola Lahan Marjinal Kasus di Desa Karangmaja, Kecamatan Karanggayam, Kabupaten Kebumen, Jawa Tengah)

The objectives of the study are: (1) To explore the capability of the farmers to carry out land-use of marginal or dry land; (2) To analyse factors which relate to farmers' capability in managing marginal land. The study was carried out in Karangmaja village, sub District of Karanggayam, the District of Kebumen Central Java. As many 100 farmers were selected by proportion random sampling as respondents. Data were analyzed using Rank Spearman non parametric method. Important results show that the capability of the farmers to manage marginal land is categorized as sedentary. Internal factors such as: motivation and participation of the farmers to joint farmers' group, interaction which information sources and dependency on land have significant correlation to the capability of the farmers to manage marginal land