What do economists know about land-and how they know? The Oxford Handbook of Land Economics describes the latest developments in the fields of economics that examine land, including natural resource economics, environmental economics, regional science, and urban economics. The handbook argues, first, that land is a theme that integrates these fields and second, that productive integration increasingly occurs not just within economics but also across disciplines. Greater recognition and integration stimulates cross-fertilization among the fields of land economics research. By providing a comprehensive survey of land-related work in several economics fields, this handbook provides the basic tools needed for economists to redefine the scope and focus of their work to better incorporate the contemporary thinking from other fields and to push out the frontiers of land economics. The first section presents recent advances in the analysis of major drivers of land use change, focusing on economic development and various land-use markets. The second section presents economic research on the environmental and socio-economic impacts of land use and land use change. The third section addresses six cutting-edge approaches for land economics research, including spatial econometric, simulation, and experimental methods. The section also includes a synthetic chapter critically reviewing methodological advances. The fourth section covers policy issues. Four chapters disentangle the economics of land conservation and preservation, while three chapters examine the economic analysis of the legal institutions of land use. These chapters focus on law and economic problems of permissible government control of land in the U.S. context.

Public concern over land management has never been greater. This book provides a broad overview of the economics of rural land-use change, drawing attention to the meaningful role economic analysis can play in resolving public concern and supporting futur

Shows how economic analysis can be applied to economic problems connected with land, in both the private and public sectors, and suggests ways in which the existing allocation of land resources can be improved

"The challenges facing agriculture are plenty. Along with the world's growing population and diminishing amounts of water and arable land, the gradual increase in severe weather presents new challenges and imperatives for producing new, more resilient crops to feed a more crowded planet in the twenty-first century. Innovation has historically helped agriculture keep pace with earth's social, population, and ecological changes. In the last 50 years, mechanical, biological, and chemical innovations have more than doubled agricultural output while barely changing input quantities. The ample investment behind these innovations was available because of a high rate of return: a 2007 paper found that the median ROI in agriculture was 45 percent between 1965 and 2005. This landscape has changed. Today many of the world's wealthier countries have scaled back their share of GDP devoted to agricultural R&D amid evidence of diminishing returns. Universities, which have historically been a major source of agricultural innovation, increasingly depend on funding from industry rather than government to fund their research. As Upton Sinclair wrote of the effects industry influences, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." In this volume of the NBER Conference Report series, editor Petra Moser offers an empirical, applied-economic framework to the different elements of agricultural R&D, particularly as they relate to the shift from public to private funding. Individual chapters examine the sources of agricultural knowledge and investigate challenges for measuring the returns to the adoption of new agricultural technologies, examine knowledge spillovers from universities to agricultural innovation, and explore interactions between university engagement and scientific productivity. Additional analysis of agricultural venture capital point to it as an emerging and future source of resource in this essential domain"--

Why are house prices in many advanced economies rising faster than incomes? Why isn’t land and location taught or seen as important in modern economics? What is the relationship between the financial system and land? In this accessible but provocative guide to the economics of land and housing, the authors reveal how many of the key challenges facing modern economies - including housing crises, financial instability and growing inequalities - are intimately tied to the land economy. Looking at the ways in which discussions of land have been routinely excluded from both housing policy and economic theory, the authors show that in order to tackle these increasingly pressing issues a major rethink by both politicians and economists is required.

Originally published in 1962, Land Economics Research brings together papers presented at a symposium in Nebraska in 1961 which deal with ideas, theories and suggestions in land economics to encourage problem-solving in American land issues. This report draws on all types of land, all situations and all economics problems related to land issues. This title will be of interest to students of Environmental Studies and Economics as well as professionals.