Are farmland preservation program easement restrictions capitalized into farmland prices? What can a propensity score matching analysis tell us?

摘要

This paper re-examines the impact of agricultural easements on farmland sales prices, using an expanded data set of 3554 observations in 22 Maryland counties, including 249 preserved properties over 1997-2003. Hedonic models of parcel price suggest substantial and statistically significant reductions in price due to preservation, ranging from 11.4% to 16.9%. However, the results of a propensity score approach are quite different, taking advantage of a very strong predictor of programme participation - the distance to the closest preserved parcel (CONTIG). With CONTIG in the model, the estimated impact of preservation on price becomes small and statistically insignificant. This means that unrestricted land located near preserved parcels tends to sell for the same low price as the preserved land..