An Empirical Examination of the Timing of Land Conversions in the Presence of Farmland Preservation Programs

Using a panel of parcel-level data we estimate a hazard model and find strong evidence that the mere existence of an option to preserve farmland delays decisions to convert farmland to developed uses by about six years, a reduction in median conversion time of 12 to 43% depending on parcel size. Where such delays allow local governments to improve infrastructure or implement stricter growth control measures, benefits of a preservation option may be even more long term. Also, increases in the variance of returns to development tended to slow conversion for parcels with all but the highest lot capacities.     

Credit Constraints: Their Existence, Determinants, and Implications for U.S. Farm and Nonfarm Sole Proprietorships

The objective of this study is to determine the effect of credit constraints on production for farm and nonfarm sole proprietorships. A propensity score-matching estimator is employed to provide unbiased estimates of the production impacts of being denied credit. The empirical results demonstrate that the value of production is significantly lower for credit-constrained sole proprietorships. If this drop in the value of production is aggregated to a national level, it constitutes only 3% and 13% of total value of production for farm and nonfarm sole proprietorships, respectively.     

The implications of the US renewable fuel standard programme for farm structure

We investigate the impact of the 2005 Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) on farm structure, particularly farm size. We rely on the salience of a new ethanol plant in a farmers’ local neighbourhood to identify the impact of the RFS mandate on these spatially advantaged farms. To control for the nonrandom selection of ethanol production facilities, we utilize a propensity score matching estimator, and to remove impact of farm-level or market shifting unobservables resulting from shifts in commodity prices we employ a difference-in-difference (DD) matching approach. We estimate the treatment effect of an ethanol production facility on farm size prior to the RFS mandate and after the RFS programme. The effect of the RFS policy on farm size is obtained as the difference between these two DD matching estimators. Overall, our results suggest that the RFS programme raised the probability of farm size increase by roughly 12–18%, on average, for farms located within a 30-mile radius of new ethanol plants. In addition, the programme contributed to a net increase in farm size of 25–32%, on average, for those spatially advantaged farms.