The Conditional Land Transfer Agreement Act, P.A. 425, 1984 (MCLA 124.21-124.29) is a public policy tool designed to promote community economic development and minimize the use of annexation in Michigan. Academic research to evaluate the impact of P.A. 425 on communities executing such contracts had not been conducted. Therefore, the question of whether the Act had accomplished its intended objectives remained unanswered. Data were collected from 26 units of governments that executed P.A. 425 agreements since 1984.

In contrast to literature which focuses on the how collective action problems inhibit the supply of efficient institutions, this paper uses dynamic stochastic general equilibrium methods to study the demand for institutional innovation. Focusing on the innovation of alienabile land rights in the West African Sahel, this microeconomic approach offers several contributions to the theory of institutional innovation.

The effects of property rights on investment are typically hypothesized to occur through a security-induced investment demand and a collateral-based credit supply. Using a two period model, this paper shows that for farms that are constrained in their access to liquidity, the investment demand effect will itself induce an increase in the endogenous shadow price of liquidity. Other things equal, this induced increase in the price of liquidity will discourage capital accumulation, and that the desired stock of expropriation-immune movable capital may decrease with tenure security.

In a fallow-cultivation model with biomass regeneration, we find the population-poverty-degradation linkage via the discount rate: slight increases in the discount rate result in increased cropping frequency and much lower soil fertility. Aggregating gives transitions equation declining in fertility and increasing in the fallow:cultivation ratio.

In the conditions of the Republic of Belarus there were presented theoretical statements and methodical approaches to the improvement of the use of lands and organization of the territory of agricultural organizations in conditions of ecologization of land use. There were formulated the notion and tasks of improvement of the use of lands of agricultural organizations.

The specificity and uniqueness of land as a land appraisal object are disclosed. Principles of land appraisal are considered, their interrelation and dependence on land use features are shown.

Розкрито специфіку і унікальність землі як обєкта оцінки. Розглянуті принципи оцінки земельних ділянок, показаний їх взаємозвязок і залежність від особливостей використання землі.

This study explores how property taxes affect the timing of development. The theoretical literature suggests that higher taxes increase the time to development, although there is some disagreement in the literature. We present a simple theoretical model to motivate an empirical model that explores how land use change decisions are made over time. A hazard model is used to predict factors that influence the time to development over an 11-year period in an urbanizing county in the Midwestern corn belt. The results suggest that higher taxes slow development, as expected.

This paper uses an analytical and econometric approach to analyze the farmland conversion process, including the effects of population growth, real estate markets, the agricultural-urban edge, and farm returns. We use a unique county-level dataset on farmland conversion for California that tracks conversions between agricultural, urban and other land uses.

Agricultural land values and cash rental rates in South Dakota, by region and by state, are the primary topics of this report. Target audiences are farmers and ranchers, landowners, ag professionals, and policy makers interested in ag land market trends. The report contains results of the 2007 SDSU SD Farm Real Estate Market Survey, developed to estimate ag land values and cash rental rates by land use in different regions of South Dakota.

Communal forests, or Montes Veciñais en Man Común (MVMC), are a specific form of communal land tenure and a singular legal category in Galicia. The growing demographic decline in rural areas and, particularly, in inner areas of Galicia has led to a decrease in the economic interest of forest resources. The complexity of the different management modes or levels of organization of forest communities cannot be explained through a homogeneous interpretation.

Multicrop farmers must choose variable input levels and land quantity for each crop. Economic researchers to date have analyzed these two decisions separately, either finding the best land use, given crop technologies, or solving for optimal input levels, ignoring the allocation of land. We show that both these approaches lead to suboptimal decision rules under risk aversion.