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Measuring the Nonmarket Value of Massachusetts Agricultural Land: A Case Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2017

John M. Halstead*
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural Economics, North Dakota State University
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Abstract

Agricultural land provides a variety of “nonmarket” services to the Commonwealth, including wildlife habitat, scenic vistas, and recreation. This study utilizes an iterative bidding game to estimate willingness-to-pay of residents of three central Massachusetts counties to preserve state agricultural land. Through the use of these data, estimates of the value of these nonmarket amenities are derived so that a fuller measure of the value of agricultural land can be obtained. This information may be useful to policy makers administering such programs as the Agricultural Preservation Restriction Act (Chapter 780) which are designed to arrest the conversion of Massachusetts farmland to urban uses.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association 

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Footnotes

The author gratefully acknowledges helpful review comments from the Department of Agricultural Economics at North Dakota State University and the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Massachusetts, especially Tom Stevens and Jay Leitch, as well as the anonymous referees. North Dakota State University journal article no. 1247.

References

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