This dissertation consists of three essays wherein tools of financial econometrics are used to study the three aspects of farmland valuation puzzle: short-term boom-bust cycles, overpricing of farmland, and inconclusive effects of direct government payments. Essay I addresses the causes of unexplained short-term boom-bust cycles in farmland values in a dynamic land pricing model (DLPM). The analysis finds that gross return rate of farmland asset decreases as the farmland asset level increases, and that the diminishing return function of farmland asset contributes to the boom-bust cycles in farmland values. Furthermore, it is mathematically proved that land values are potentially unstable under diminishing return functions. We also find that intertemporal elasticity of substitution, risk aversion, and transaction costs are important determinants of farmland asset values. Essay II examines the apparent overpricing of farmland by decomposing the forecast error variance of farmland prices into forward looking and backward looking components. The analysis finds that in the short run, the forward looking Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) portion of the forecast errors are significantly higher in a boom or bust stage than in a stable stage. This shows that the farmland market absorbs economic information in a discriminative manner according to the stability of the market, and the market (and actors therein) responds to new information gradually as suggested by the theory. This helps to explain the overpricing of farmland, but this explanation works primarily in the short run. Finally, essay III investigates the duel effects of direct government payments and climate change on farmland values. This study uses a smooth coefficient semi-parametric panel data model. The analysis finds that land valuation is affected by climate change and government payments, both through discounted revenues and through effects on the risk aversion of land owners. This essay shows that including heterogeneous risk aversion is an efficient way to mitigate the impacts of misspecifications in a DLPM, and that precipitation is a good explanatory variable. In particular, precipitation affects land values in a bimodal manner, indicating that farmland prices could have multiple peaks in precipitation due to adaption through crop selection and technology alternation. The electronic version of this dissertation is accessible from http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/150974

The 2008 financial crisis has led to the breakdown of the new synthesis consensus in the mainstream economic theories. Rational expectations (RE) and non-rational expectations (NRE) have respectively explained the policy irrelevance of and the behavior departure from standard economic theories. On the basis of existing literature of RE and NRE, the paper introduces the RE-NRE duality of investors' expectations to denote that every real world investors' expectation may be partly described in terms not only of RE, but also of NRE. By explaining the frameworks, innovations, and backgrounds of the author's three-essay doctoral dissertation, Essays in Financial Econometric Investigations of Farmland Valuations (2013), the paper illustrates the empirical and theoretical fulcrums of the RE-NRE duality: (i) empirically, the three driving forces of Modern Expectation Theories, i.e. Rational Expectations, Behavioral Finance (NRE), and Financial Econometrics, will stand as a tripod to jointly promote the understanding and forecasting of financial phenomena, especially by adopting nonparametric estimations to overcome the quantization obstacles of NRE, and (ii) theoretically, the coalition between Financial Econometrics and the RE-NRE duality will constitute unified Modern Expectation Theories to provide a feasible conclusion for the debate between the hypotheses of RE and NRE, helping fill the void created by the breakdown of the new synthesis consensus in the mainstream economic theories. More intriguingly, the paper elaborates upon the dissertation's failure to explicitly address how to prevent financial crises by encouraging RE and how to constrain the negative impacts of financial crises by demotivating NRE, attempting to locate the source of the 2008 financial crisis in the consequences of the financial market's time horizon dilemma, and to connect the numerous studies and observations concerning the 2008 financial crisis through the practical effects of the RE-NRE duality.

Interest for this research was initiated by the threefold increase witnessed in rural land values since the early 1950's. Society in general and farmers, mortgage lenders, tax assessors and public policy makers in particular are concerned with these price increases because of their economic, social and political implications. The major objective of this study was to identify the more important factors influencing farmland prices, develop a methodology to measure their individual effect on market value and, if possible, project future land prices for alternative values of these determining variables. Before hypotheses concerning sources of price variation were generated or functional relationships specified, familiarization with the nature and structural characteristics of the farmland market itself was accomplished by personal observation of the market in operation, discussions with participants (buyers and sellers) and a fairly exhaustive review of major studies on land values in both the United States and Canada. Two econometric models of the farmland market were subsequently formulated -- a cross sectional or static model- and a time series or dynamic model. Four basic hypotheses were tested -- the market value of farmland is positively related, to (a) soil productivity, (b) expected net farm income from land, (c) long term farm credit availability and (d) technological advance in the agricultural industry. Land value data for the empirical analysis were obtained from two independent sources -- (a) Manitoba Crop District 3 and 10 sales data (1958 - 1970) and (b) D.B.S. estimates of the average annual "value per acre of occupied land" for each of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. (1928 - 1969) Both models were fitted. to the economic data by ordinary least-squares linear regression ...

Interest for this research was initiated by the threefold increase witnessed in rural land values since the early 1950's. Society in general and farmers, mortgage lenders, tax assessors and public policy makers in particular are concerned with these price increases because of their economic, social and political implications. The major objective of this study was to identify the more important factors influencing farmland prices, develop a methodology to measure their individual effect on market value and, if possible, project future land prices for alternative values of these determining variables. Before hypotheses concerning sources of price variation were generated or functional relationships specified, familiarization with the nature and structural characteristics of the farmland market itself was accomplished by personal observation of the market in operation, discussions with participants (buyers and sellers) and a fairly exhaustive review of major studies on land values in both the United States and Canada. Two econometric models of the farmland market were subsequently formulated -- a cross sectional or static model- and a time series or dynamic model. Four basic hypotheses were tested -- the market value of farmland is positively related, to (a) soil productivity, (b) expected net farm income from land, (c) long term farm credit availability and (d) technological advance in the agricultural industry. Land value data for the empirical analysis were obtained from two independent sources -- (a) Manitoba Crop District 3 and 10 sales data (1958 - 1970) and (b) D.B.S. estimates of the average annual "value per acre of occupied land" for each of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. (1928 - 1969) Both models were fitted. to the economic data by ordinary least-squares linear regression...