A two-stage model is used to examine a landowner's decision to use riparian buffers. First, the farmer chooses whether to continue farming or to sell the land for development. If the farmer continues farming, then he or she must decide whether or not to plant a buffer. If the farmer plants a...

The federal government program for wetlands regulation is administered by the United States Army Corps of Engineers pursuant to Section 404 of the Clean Water Act. Proposals for amending and/or reforming the Section 404 program are included in Congressional deliberations regarding Clean Water...

Research has developed empirical models and procedures for analyzing factors which influence rural land markets; however, there have been limited efforts in developing procedures for identifying rural land submarkets. Principal component analysis is used here to detect the presence of multiple...

Determining appropriate topics and target audiences is essential to design effective educational outreach programs. Based on landowner responses to a mail survey, we determined both the importance and the availability of wildlife and forest management information topics to Mississippi...

Markov chain analysis (one-step and long-run) is applied to the National Resources Inventory (NRI) database to evaluate changes in wind-based soil erosion rates over time. The research compares changes in soil erosion rates between NRI sample sites with and without applied conservation practices...

The U.S. paper industry has become increasingly concentrated and therefore been suspected of imperfect competition. In this study, the new empirical industrial organization approach is employed to measure the degree of oligopoly and oligopsony power in the U.S. paper industry simultaneously. The...

Zoning decisions related to residential lot size and density affect residential land value. Effects of size on residential parcel value in Roanoke County, VA, are estimated with fixed effects hedonic models. Parcel size; elevation; soil permeability; proximity to urban areas, malls, and roads;...

Among Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) participants, there is a distinction between farm households using the program to ease out of farming and those using the program to augment production receipts. We find evidence that factors other than crop or livestock revenue and environmental factors...

Regional and farm-level analyses are conducted to evaluate the economic and environmental impacts of water quality protection policies. The regional analysis evaluates reducing nitrate losses by reducing per-acre nitrogen use, taxing nitrogen use, taxing irrigation water use, and reducing furrow...

The study examines Louisiana small farmers' reasons for not participating in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), their awareness of the program, and their willingness to participate in the program. The results suggest that: farmers do not participate in the CRP if revenues from cropland are...