IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jaerec/doi10.1086-695615.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tax Incentives and the Price of Conservation

Author

Listed:
  • Dominic P. Parker
  • Walter N. Thurman

Abstract

We study the role of tax incentives in promoting a fast-growing and novel type of conservation: voluntary, permanent restrictions on private land use through conservation easements. In the United States, easements represent the largest charitable gift on a per-donation basis, but skeptics wonder if their tax preference merely subsidizes wealthy landowners rather than inducing conservation. We incorporate federal and state income tax codes into a calculator to quantify the after-tax donation price and demonstrate its sensitivity to landowner income and state and federal policies. Using a 1987–2012 panel, we measure the response of state-level easements to the price. Our large elasticity estimates, spanning −2.4 to −6.1, indicate that tax incentives induce conservation and do not merely subsidize it. We find no evidence that generous tax benefits have caused less strategic patterns of land conservation.

Suggested Citation

  • Dominic P. Parker & Walter N. Thurman, 2018. "Tax Incentives and the Price of Conservation," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 5(2), pages 331-369.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jaerec:doi:10.1086/695615
    DOI: 10.1086/695615
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/695615
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/695615
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/695615?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chuan Yang & Mingfeng Li & Ziqi Wang, 2022. "A Bibliometric Analysis on Conservation Land Trust and Implication for China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(19), pages 1-18, October.
    2. repec:ags:aaea22:335832 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Rissman, Adena R. & Morris, Amy W. & Kalinin, Alexey & Kohl, Patrice A. & Parker, Dominic P. & Selles, Owen, 2019. "Private organizations, public data: Land trust choices about mapping conservation easements," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    4. repec:ags:aaea22:335462 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Kalinin, Alexey V. & Sims, Katharine R.E. & Meyer, Spencer R. & Thompson, Jonathan R., 2023. "Does land conservation raise property taxes? Evidence from New England cities and towns," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucp:jaerec:doi:10.1086/695615. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JAERE .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.