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Determinants of Land-Use Change In the United States 1982-1997

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  • Stavins, Robert
  • Plantinga, Andrew
  • Lubowski, Ruben

Abstract

Changes in the use of land in the United States produce significant economic and environmental effects with important implications for a wide variety of policy issues, including protection of wildlife habitat, management of urban growth, and mitigation of global climate change. In contrast to previous descriptive and qualitative analyses of the trends in national land use, this paper uses an econometric approach to isolate the importance of historical changes in land-use profits and key government policies in determining national land-use changes from 1982 to 1997. The policies we examine are the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and total government payments to crop producers. We estimate a national-level discrete choice model of changes among the major land-use categories (crops, pasture, forest, urban, range, and CRP) with parcel-level observations of land use and land quality from the U.S.D.A. National Resources Inventory NRI) and measures of countylevel land-use net returns from a variety of sources. We then use fitted values from the econometric model to simulate land-use change from 1982 to 1997 under a series of factual and counterfactual scenarios that isolate the effects of different economic and policy factors. The simulations suggest how changes in economic returns and government policies have driven land-use changes in the past and will continue to affect nationwide land-use changes in the future. For example, we find that the introduction of the CRP and the decline in crop profits were the most significant explanatory factors driving the decline in cropland. Our results highlight some “unintended consequences” of government policies and the importance of net returns to a range of alternative land uses as determinants of land area change for each particular use.

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  • Stavins, Robert & Plantinga, Andrew & Lubowski, Ruben, 2003. "Determinants of Land-Use Change In the United States 1982-1997," RFF Working Paper Series dp-03-47, Resources for the Future.
  • Handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-03-47
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    Cited by:

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    2. Langpap, Christian & Hascic, Ivan & Wu, JunJie, 2006. "Predicting Watershed Ecosystems Through Targeted Local Land Use Policies," 2006 Annual meeting, July 23-26, Long Beach, CA 21262, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    3. repec:zbw:rwirep:0043 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Vance, Colin & Iovanna, Rich, 2008. "Cities and Satellites: Spatial Effects and Unobserved Heterogeneity in the Modeling of Urban Growth," Ruhr Economic Papers 43, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    5. Langpap, Christian & Wu, JunJie, 2004. "Predicting The Effect Of Local Land Use Regulations On Biodiversity In The Western United States," 2004 Annual meeting, August 1-4, Denver, CO 20038, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    6. Wu, JunJie & Gopinath, Munisamy, 2005. "How Do Location Decisions of Firms and Households Affect Economic Development in Rural America?," 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI 19229, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    7. Jane Musole Kwenye & Xiaoting Hou Jones & Alan Renwick, 2023. "Understanding Land-Use Trade-off Decision Making Using the Analytical Hierarchy Process: Insights from Agricultural Land Managers in Zambia," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-19, February.
    8. Claassen, Roger & Lubowski, Ruben N. & Roberts, Michael J., 2005. "Extent, Location, and Characteristics of Land Cropped Due to Insurance Subsidies," 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI 19546, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    land use; econometric model; counterfactual simulation; Conservation Reserve Program (CRP);
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods
    • Q1 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture
    • Q24 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Land
    • R14 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Land Use Patterns
    • R15 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Econometric and Input-Output Models; Other Methods

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