published_or_final_version / Urban Planning / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

This dissertation contains three essays on Urban Economics. The first two chapters study the impact of land-use regulation on economic development. Many countries have land-use regulations to preserve farmland from urban land expansion. In Chapter 1 and 2, I show that such regulations can distort economic activity across sectors and locations at a substantial cost to aggregate welfare in developing countries during urbanization. Specifically, I study a major policy restricting farm-to-urban land conversion in China - the Farmland Red Line Policy - to provide causal evidence on the impact of land-use regulation on local development measured by GDP and population growth. The policy imposes a barrier to urban land development, the strength of which depends on exogenous local geographical features. In Chapter 1, I show that a greater barrier significantly reduces urban land supply, lowers GDP, and decreases population. Findings in Chapter 1 raises the question about the aggregate impact of the Farmland Red Line Policy. Therefore, in the second chapter, I develop a quantitative spatial equilibrium model that features endogenous land-use decisions in order to understand the aggregate impact of the policy. According to the model, the policy causes an excess supply of farmland and an under-supply of urban land, and the extent of such land misallocation varies across locations due to their local geographical features. In the constrained equilibrium, the spatial and sectoral mobility of workers implies that land misallocation leads to labor misallocation. The calibrated model reveals that the welfare of workers would have been 6% higher in 2010 if the policy had not been implemented. Moreover, a cap-and-trade system that achieved the same aggregate level of farmland would have been far less costly in terms of welfare. The results suggest that fast-growing economies in developing countries need to design land-use policies carefully, as the welfare costs of poorly designed policies can be substantial. In Chapter 3, I test the impact of team size on one's publication output among US university economists from 1996 to 2011. I construct a database of affiliation and publication history for all US university economists using the publication information from the Scopus Database. University funding revenue from government appropriation and private gifts is used as an instrument for the total number of economists at a university. I find that a 10% increase in team size raises one's publication on top 5 economic journals by 30%. Moreover, the team size effect disappears once crossing the affiliation border: having more economists in a nearby affiliation does not affect one's output. Finally, increasing chances to coauthor with colleagues when being part of a larger team helps explain the team size effect.

Yao, Wang. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 38-39). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgements --- p.ii / Contents --- p.iii / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2 --- A Case Study of the Land Market in Hong Kong --- p.7 / Chapter 2.1 --- Background --- p.7 / Chapter 2.2 --- Institutions related to the land market --- p.7 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Land Disposals --- p.8 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Public Housing --- p.9 / Chapter 2.3 --- Recent Land and Housing Market History --- p.10 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Land Supply and Land Prices --- p.11 / Chapter 3 --- A Theory of Political Economy of Land Supply --- p.16 / Chapter 3.1 --- Model Setup --- p.16 / Chapter 3.2 --- Definition of Equilibrium --- p.19 / Chapter 3.3 --- Equilibrium Characterization --- p.20 / Chapter 3.4 --- Comparative Statics --- p.28 / Chapter 4 --- Conclusion --- p.31 / Appendix --- p.33 / Reference --- p.38

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Many national parks in lesser developed countries are threatened by adjacent human land uses. To meet both social and environmental needs, effective programs must be implemented to manage lands adjacent to national parks for conservation and development. This requires careful analysis of the socio-economic aspects of existing land use patterns and their implications for biological conservation. Research was undertaken adjacent to Braulio Carrillo National Park, Costa Rica. The biological integrity of the park depends on maintenance of natural habitats on lands adjacent to the lowland sector of the park. Existing lowland forest habitat adjacent to the park is rapidly being converted to pasture. Protecting the park's lowland biological resources depends on both stopping the influx of colonists into the area and encouraging land uses with biological conservation value outside the park. Both these issues are explored in detail. The rationale behind existing land uses in the region is discussed in relation to socio-economic variables identified from the literature on land use choice in Latin America. Large landholders generally engage in beef cattle ranching, frequently in association which land speculation. Small landholders prefer dairy cattle for cheese production is due to its low risk, stable markets, and the possibility of gradual and reversible entry. Smaller cattle operations use land more intensively, but by investing more labor appear to achieve sustainability. More intensive cash cropping is often combined with cattle to increase overall income. Timber production shows potential to partially replace cattle as an extensive, low risk land use. The impact of different adjacent land uses on park biological resources was assessed through a survey of biologists familiar with the region. The two land uses of greatest benefit to park resources were completely protected forest and natural forest management for timber production. The two land uses causing greatest harm to park resources were annual crops and pasture. Two management options for conservation and development adjacent to the park are proposed: (1) a forest buffer, and (2) a mosaic of different land uses, including pasture, perennial crops, and forest.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of Economics

Law is a means to an end. The state has always claimed it uses law as a tool to promote social order and progress (the Brazilian National Flag is an example). The use of law to force social change to facilitate capital accumulation for elites in society flies in the face of what the takings clause is supposed to stand for. This research examines the connection between economic development and public good. It focuses on takings because takings lie at the intersection between economics, politics, and social relations. Takings are justified by necessity and public good, but the claim isn’t genuine. Takings condone displacement and cause harm. State-authorized condemnation juxtaposes civic duty with social obligation, ownership with license and privilege. The thesis developed here is the state is pushing the law of takings toward the satisfaction of private interests. To that end the public use concept was expanded. Kelo v. City of New London (2005) holds economic development is a public use and in making that fallacious claim the case has ruptured takings law. Public use shouldn’t be about private gain. Property should be creative and is when it facilitates productivity, but it’s destructive if it erodes personal autonomy. The state claims it promotes social good when it reorders uses, but the claim is false. Instead the state achieves an air of legitimacy, offering a sound rationale for acts of displacement and uses law to support the claim it promotes public good. If an individual doesn’t want to part with her property she shouldn’t be forced to do so. Taking is use of state power to accomplish ends that can’t otherwise be achieved. Taking is a lawful means to displace to benefit private interests. The proof of this is in the pudding of the transformation of law between Berman v. Parker (1954) and Kelo v. City of New London (2005). Berman (1954) required blight. Kelo v. City of New London (2005) eliminated that requirement. This thesis explains how law and state are captured by private interests. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Land degradation is a serious problem that many poor communities face and this worsens their vulnerability and therefore, poses a threat to food security, as it reduces yield, forces farmers to use more inputs, and disproportionately affect the smallholder farmers in remote communities that also suffer diverse infrastructure disadvantages. In response to that, the international development agencies, donors, and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), especially faith-based organizations have turned towards sustainable farming approaches. Much attention has been paid to a combination of sustainable farming measures which are packaged under the “Conservation Agriculture” (CA) banner. The previous work in the KZN Province and elsewhere has demonstrated that CA has the potential to improve the soil structure, thereby reversing the effect of soil degradation. Consequently, many of the farmers in the areas in which these demonstrations have been conducted appreciate the ecological and economic value of adopting CA. However, the on-farm financial benefits of adopting a CA specific tillage practice are not as well known or thought to be as pronounced. By means of integrating field survey, reviewed literature, and econometric analysis, this study assessed the farm level cost-benefit analysis of conservation agriculture for smallholder maize farmers in OLM, specifically in one demonstration village of Bergville town. The analysis is based on the case study of the NGO’s work in which they had selected a community and participating households who received assistance in a number of ways such as maize seed, soil preparation, and CA planters. To analyse the farm level cost-benefit analysis, descriptive, linear regression, gross margin (GM) and appraisal indicators such as Net Present Value (NPV), Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) and Internal Rate of Return (IRR) were used. The descriptive analysis, used to analyse the factors affecting the extent of adoption of CA revealed that socio-economic characteristics have the influence on the level to which a farmer responds to incentives. Linear regression model used in this study showed that years in farming, involvement in joint farmer’s group, and use of cover crops have the significant effect on the extent of adoption of CA. Moreover, the calculated gross margins of the two tillage systems were different, revealing higher Gross Margins for CA plots than for conventional plots. The major cause of the difference was found to be differences in the variable costs. When using appraisal indicators (NPV, BCR, and IRR) the study projected a 10-year period at 8% and 10.5% discount rates. The study also revealed positive NPVs for both CA and conventional agriculture. The positive sign implies that there are positive pay-offs for investing in both trial and control plots. However, trial plots have larger NPVs compared to control plots, meaning that there are less additional returns for investing in control plots compared to trial plots. Results also reveal that with 10.5% discount rate, the NPVs are lower than with 8% discount rate, showing that lower discount rates are consistent with higher performance over the long term. This therefore means that at lower discount rate, it is more viable to produce maize using CA than using conventional tillage system. In the case of BRC presented in the study, it was revealed that at both low and high discount rates, the trial plots were more viable than the control plots. Finally, the IRR presented in the study reveal that the trial plots would be able to pay their way much faster than the control plots. Overall, the study found that there are incentives to adoption of CA compared to conventional farming. The message from the different results arising from the use of different discount rates is that farmers should receive assistance at low cost of capital in order for their operations to be viable and this works out well over the long term as shown by the 10-year period projections.

<p>A major challenge of achieving sustainable development is to balance two critical targets with finite resources: to secure food security for a growing population with rising consumption demands, and to prevent further pollution into the environment and losses in ecosystem services. More importantly, the targets of food production and environment protection are not only related to socio-economic and technological development, but also tangled together both ecologically and economically, in particular regarding competition for land – the necessary natural resource for achieving both targets. In view of this, a comprehensive understanding about how to achieve sustainable development requires integrated analyses of the nexus of agricultural production, land use and environmental protection (the “agriculture-land-environment nexus”), interactions between these components,  and their responses to socio-economic development and policies. </p> <p><br></p> <p>This dissertation consists of three essays focusing on the impacts of environmental protection polices and infrastructure on the agriculture-land-environment nexus. The first essay analyzes how pollution reduction influences ecosystem services, with both a theoretical model and also empirical analysis with city-level data from China. Existing literature from the environmental and ecological fields reports that pollution reduction contributes to ecosystem services, but the ecosystem effects via economic channels remain under-addressed. We find when integrated together with an economic system, the reduction of pollution causes losses in the area of natural land that supports ecosystem services, which is further supported by empirical evidence. This finding emphasizes the importance of taking ecosystem effects into account on the design, implementation and evaluation of pollution control policies.</p> <p><br></p> <p>The second essay researches the impact of a large-scale forestry and grassland conservation policy in China, the grain-to-green project (GTGP), on cropland supply and crop production. In this essay, we first develop a theoretical model of the relationships between cropland supply, land value (with market access as proxy) and GTGP, and then empirically test these relationships using gridded data from China. We find GTGP not only directly reduces cropland area, but also restricts the elasticity of cropland supply in response to market access. Furthermore, we apply the GTGP’s impacts on cropland supply elasticity on a grid-solving computable model, in order to both validate the model and elasticity estimates via hindcasting and evaluate the GTGP’s impact on agricultural production via simulation. In the computable model where all grids are connected with crop markets, we find two effects of GTGP on agriculture: the direct effect that restricts cropland use and crop production in regions where it is implemented, and the indirect effect that increases crop production on regions not restricted or less restricted by GTGP. Essay 2 contributes to the literature by not only estimating the pattern of gridded cropland supply in China, but also reveals the indirect effect of GTGP on agriculture, which has seldom been researched. </p> <p><br></p> <p>The third essay researches the impact of transportation infrastructure on Brazilian agriculture, land use, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Combining a geographic information system (GIS) based analysis and computable model simulation, we find the expansion of infrastructure mainly contributes to the transportation cost reduction in inland Brazil and causes local cropland expansion and increased GHG emissions from land conversion. However, the shifting of crop production towards inland Brazil reduces the demand for cropland in southeastern and southern Brazil, which offsets the impact on cropland expansion and GHG emissions at the national level. Findings in Essay 3 indicate the importance of capturing both spatial heterogeneity and spatial spillover effects of infrastructure expansion when evaluating agricultural and environmental impacts. </p>