Since the economic recession in Latvia, the national debt in September 2010 amounted to 4.717 billion lats. The study confirms significant impact of downward trends of the economy of Latvia on the national budget performance indicators in 2009. One of the most commonly mentioned and controversial indicator is the real estate tax that has to be imposed also on the land. The aim of this study is to analyse and assess the system of the Land Fund of Latvia and features of tax application.

The total expected cost of sequestering carbon in agricultural soils is estimated under a possible EQIP program offering a per-acre subsidy to adopt conservation tillage and a carbon credit program where producers can sell their carbon credit in an external market. Both programs are compared to the minimum cost solution.

Land resources are not fully exploited for agricultural production in Latvia. According to the Rural Support Service, in 2013 approximately 400 thousands ha of agricultural land were not declared for Single Area Payment Scheme. Increases in bioresources and food production in the world have become objective needs. Exploiting these land resources provides a possibility to increase agricultural output and economic efficiency in Latvia’s rural areas. Yet, agricultural growth in Latvia’s rural areas may not be in contradiction with sustainable development principles.

The implementation of land reform has influenced the formation of property structure. The main procedures of land reform activities are stated in Estonian legislation. However, the provisions for determining the area and the boundaries for properties to be formed in the course of land reform are stated in legal acts in an unsystematic way. The aim of this study is to systematize the parcel area and the boundaries determination procedures that are used in the course of land reform for property formation.

Farmland values in the United States represent a major component of the farm sector balance sheet. The linkage between farmland values and agricultural debt has typically been ignored in the literature. This paper attempts to make two contributions to our understanding of farmland prices. First, building on established literature, this study examines the role of debt solvency and government payments in farmland valuation.

This paper examines the economics of urban expansion onto rural land in light of the sustainable management requirements of New Zealand's Resource Management Act. It finds that if conversion of land from rural to urban uses is practically irreversible because of the high cost of restoring rural qualities, it creates a user cost or inter-temporal externality which planning controls could address. Comparison of the methods for implementing such a policy show tradable development rights have high efficiency, but there are legal, practical and political obstacles to their use.

Plant invasions and their impact on land use pose difficult research questions, due to the complex relationships between the ecological nature of the invasion and the human responses to the invasion. This paper focuses on the linkages between an invasion of bracken fern and land use decisions in an agricultural frontier in southern Mexico. Agriculture in this region is practiced on an extensive basis, using traditional slash-and-burn techniques of temporary cultivation and continuous rotation through forest fallow.