The debate over sustainable intensification has hinged on private incentives to abate land degradation. Largely missing is the role of social capital in both creating incentives and removing barriers to soil conservation. Yet soil conservation embodies the externality problem that bedevils so many aspects of natural resource management. Action by one farmer to reduce water or wind erosion may benefit neighboring fields by slowing the rate of water or wind movement across those lands. Yet these benefits are not fully captured by the farmer making the conservation investment.

While many states such as Vermont have adopted the Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) programs to protect farmland, few studies have examined how the prices of such development rights are determined and whether the prices are close to the market value. Using data from the state of Vermont, this study first examines the effects of development restrictions on the market price of rural and semi-rural properties and then addresses the question of whether the prices paid for development rights are close to the market value.

It's became clear that Land is not only a basic factor of production, it also has a number of specific features. Against this background, it has long been recognized that clarifying property rights to land can enhance economic growth through a number of channels:

This paper explores deforestation and asset accumulation among small scale farmers in tropical forests. In a two-state variable control model, forest clearing is an investment in land holdings and the productivity of forest clearing is a function of non-land assets like chainsaws.

Since 1982, the New Castle County Superior Court in Delaware has promoted mediation, which attempts to resolve filed conflicts prior to trial. This paper evaluates how spatial land-use conflicts channel through mediation and litigation. Data suggest that mediations fail because one of the key disputing parties does not play a direct role in mediation and litigation. The data then inform a predictive model of litigated outcomes in which disputants share in the responsibility for conflict.

The overall goal of our paper is to estimate the impact of China's land rights on farm investment incentives and agricultural production. To meet the goal, the paper pursues three specific objectives. First, the paper briefly reviews the various linkages between land rights and investment incentives. Next, we demonstrate how land use behavior differs according to the tenure regime and land rights. Third, by using our field survey data, this paper identifies the links between specific land rights, instead of just the land tenure type, and investment incentives.

Based on a case study of two Moldovan regions, the paper challenges the favourable assessment of recently established peasant farms in a World Bank study by LERMAN et al. (1998).

Bid-rent curves are incorporated in a stochastic dynamic programming model of land development around a city when farmland generates both positive and negative externalities. The model delineates how the quantities of land in
various uses over time should depend on the relative social weights assigned to the competing agricultural externalities.

While agricultural land preservation programs seek to maximize number of acres, to preserve productive farms, to preserve contiguous farms, and to preserve threatened farms, they are often evaluated solely on the number of acres preserved. Using a Farrell efficiency analysis, preserved parcels in four Maryland counties were evaluated for all four goals. Comparisons are made between program Econometric analysis used these efficiency measures as dependent variables. Parcel size and productive farms were the most frequently used criteria to determine efficiency.