Do Agricultural Preservation Programs Affect Farmland Conversion? Evidence from a Propensity Score Matching Estimator

Xiangping Liu () and Lori Lynch

No 28569, Working Papers from University of Maryland, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics

Abstract: More than 124 governmental entities concerned about suburban sprawl and farmland loss have implemented farmland preservation programs preserving 1.67 million acres at a cost of $3.723 billion. Yet little analysis on these programs' effectiveness in slowing farmland loss has been conducted. Using a unique 50-year 269 county panel data set on preservation programs and farmland loss for six Mid-Atlantic States, we employ the propensity score matching method to find strong empirical evidence that these programs have had a statistically significant effect on the rate of farmland loss. Preservation programs on average decrease the rate of farmland loss by 3 percentage points; a 43% decrease from the average rate of 7.31%.

Keywords: Land; Economics/Use (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38
Date: 2006
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/28569/files/wp060008.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:umdrwp:28569

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.28569

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from University of Maryland, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().