Environmental Regulation and Farm Productivity: Evidence from Minnesota's Buffer Law

Ajit Khanal and Nicolas Legrand

No 404481, 2026 Annual Meeting, July 26 - 28, 2026, Kansas City, Missouri from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association

Abstract: This paper studies whether Minnesota’s Buffer Law affected county-level corn and soybean yields. Using a staggered difference-in-differences design that compares Minnesota border counties to neighboring border counties, we estimate dynamic effects while controlling for weather, drought, fertilizer use, and adoption intensity of federal conservation programs. We do not find consistent evidence that the law reduced average yields in the later post-treatment periods. The current results are preliminary and should be interpreted cautiously pending additional robustness and sensitivity analysis.

Keywords: Environmental; Economics; and; Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 12
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaea26:404481

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.404481

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