Nonparametric analysis of the influence of buyers' characteristics and personal relationships on agricultural land prices

摘要

The influence of buyer and personal relationship characteristics on agricultural land prices has received little attention in the literature. Recently, G.M. Perry and L.J. Robinson (2001) used a restricted nonlinear specification to model the influence of personal relationships (and other factors) on the implicit prices of land characteristics. In this article, we extend and generalize their specification using nonparametric neural networks. The results indicate that buyer characteristics and personal relationships affect the terms of trade in the land market, which is consistent with the social capital hypothesis. The impact of buyer characteristics and personal relationships on the implicit prices of land characteristics is, however, non-uniform and highly nonlinear. [EconLit citations: C290, D450, Q150].