In this study, we analyze the effect of property taxes on changes between agricultural, forestry, Conservation Reserve Program, and developed land uses in Louisiana. We estimate a random parameters logit model of land-use conversion from the National Resources Inventory plot data. Our results indicate that land-use changes are inelastic with respect to property taxes. Simulation shows that curr...

This paper investigates the impact of climate change on the productivity of crop production using U.S. county-level yield and weather data between 1950 and 2015. It finds that the pooled estimators used in previous studies underestimate the sensitivity of crops to high temperatures by ignoring slope heterogeneity, and underestimate the damage of future climate change on yield. Furthermore, expl...

This paper evaluates the impact of access to groundwater on poverty using data from rural India. The estimation exploits the fact that the technology required to access groundwater changes exogenously due to constraints imposed by laws of physics at a depth of eight meters. I find that rural poverty in areas where depth from surface is below the cutoff is 9 to10 percent higher. Using survey dat...

Factor market failures can limit adoption of profitable technologies. We leverage a plot-level spatial regression discontinuity design in the context irrigation use by farmers provided free access to water. Using boosts profits 43–62 percent. Yet, only irrigate 30 percent plots because labor costs. demonstrate inefficient use, showing irrigating one plot reduce their on other plots. This ineffi...

This paper examines how subsistence farmers respond to extreme heat. Using microdata from Peruvian households, we find that high temperatures reduce agricultural productivity, increase area planted, and change crop mix. These findings are consistent with using input adjustments as a short-term mechanism attenuate the effect of heat on output. response seems complement other coping strategies, s...

This paper uses remote sensing data from 1989 to 2000 to examine the impacts of price liberalization, land tenure, and biophysical characteristics on farmland abandonment in the border region of Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine. Using regression analysis and matching estimators, we find that differences in biophysical characteristics, rather than in tenure systems, best explain the variation in ab...

Land-use changes involve important economic and environmental effects with implications for international trade, global climate change, wildlife, and other policy issues. We use an econometric model to identify factors driving land-use change in the United States between 1982 and 1997. We quantify the effects of net returns to alternative land uses on private landowners’ decisions to allocate l...

The analysis of land investment and tenure security usually assumes land scarcity. However, some developing countries have communities with land abundance. This article therefore examines the effects of land abundance for investment and tenure security. The paper develops a formal test of land abundance and estimates a system of three simultaneous equations. The empirical analysis uncovers sign...

This article investigates the behavioral drivers of pasture creation and associated implications for deforestation in a 22,000 km2 agricultural frontier spanning the base of Mexico‘s southern Yucatán. After developing a theoretical model that highlights the role of social networks and information spillovers with respect to the decision to begin cattle ranching, we use household data to estimate...