Agricultural Payments and Land Concentration: A Semiparametric Spatial Regression Analysis

Michael Roberts and Nigel Key

American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 2008, vol. 90, issue 3, 627-643

Abstract: Over the last twenty years, both crop production and agricultural payments have shifted toward larger operations. This study examines whether payments from federal farm programs contributed to increased concentration of cropland and farmland. Using zip code—level data constructed from the microfiles of the 1987–2002 agriculture censuses we examine the association between government payments per acre and subsequent growth in land concentration. A semiparametric generalized additive model (GAM) controls for location and historical concentration, sales per acre, and ratio of cropland area to zip code area. Findings indicate, both with and without nonparametric controls, government payments are strongly associated with subsequent concentration growth. Copyright 2008, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/j.1467-8276.2008.01144.x (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:oup:ajagec:v:90:y:2008:i:3:p:627-643

Access Statistics for this article

American Journal of Agricultural Economics is currently edited by Madhu Khanna, Brian E. Roe, James Vercammen and JunJie Wu

More articles in American Journal of Agricultural Economics from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().