Rents and Land Prices in Japan: A Panel Cointegration Approach

The Japanese farmland market is strongly regulated, although partial deregulation and decentralization are evident. This paper examines the relationship between farmland rents and prices in Japan using recent panel cointegration methods, which admit structural breaks. Results show the presence of a cointegrating relationship with significant breaks that increased the rent/price ratio by 9% in 1967 and by 15% in 1980; prices cause rents, which supports an institutional rent-formation hypothesis; and the farmland market is inefficient.