An individual's rate of time preference is an important consideration for individuals deciding whether to support a public good since the benefits of a public good often come in the future. Our study finds individual discount rates from a contingent valuation method (CVM) question where the time...

An individual’s rate-of-time-preference is an important consideration for individuals deciding whether to support a public good, since the benefits of a public good often come in the future. Our study finds individual discount rates from a contingent valuation method (CVM) question where the...

The kind of open space benefit, recreation, or amenity, in our spatial city model determines in part how open space influences residential development. Our model also determines the exact total social benefits of open-space policies by summing together the change in household welfare and...

The spatial arrangement of public open spaces in communities has an important influence on the recreational net benefits from those public open spaces. A prime example of a public open space in communities where spatial arrangement is important is parks. From the perspective of maximizing the...

We evaluate how land use change and the value ecosystem services affect the decision to invest in public land acquisitions. Our application is for the state of Minnesota, and we consider the acquisitions by Department of Natural Resources over the last two decades. We calculate a return on...

Using county-level panel data, we estimate duration models to study the timing of rapid farmland conversion events. Results suggest that income and the proximity to major highways are the principal determinants of rapid conversion events (and also responsible for prolonging these events). In...

The gain from dividing parks into smaller pieces to reduce travel costs is weighed against the loss in services the parks provide since they are smaller. The optimal number of parks is dependent on whether travel costs are concentrated in parts of the town.