Emery N. Castle

A Conceptual Framework for the Study of Rural Places

Three attributes of rural America reflect its fundamental nature: (a) a relatively sparse population, (b) its interdependence with urban and global systems, and (c) its enormous diversity. These attributes are frequently neglected in rural studies work; when they are not recognized, conclusions pertaining to rural places are seldom reliable. The 1990 census reports that 97% of the land area of the forty-eight contiguous states is rural and about 80% is nonmetropolitan. This vast area provides residence for 22.5% and 24.8% of the population, respectively. Sparsity of population is of value to some people most of the time, and other people part of the time, as well as for certain space-using activities such as farming and forestry. Nevertheless, space equates to distance, and overcoming distance requires a sacrifice of time and other resources (Crosson, Fuguitt, Hart). Farming occupies about one-half the land area of rural America. Farming and agricultural services provide less than 10% of the total employment in nonmetropolitan places. Further, there is a remarkable similarity in the sectoral shares of employment between metropolitan and nonmetropolitan counties (Mills). Thus, there is little factual basis for the common practice of treating agricultural and rural as synonymous. Great interdependence exists between rural and urban systems, rural fundamentalist rhetoric to the contrary (Weber). It is difficult to imagine a single significant rural social problem that can be understood or addressed in isolation from urban or global systems (Jacobs).

Farm Real Estate Price Components, 1920–78

The research reported demonstrates that farm real estate price involves important components in addition to the capitalized value of rent for the services of land and buildings in farm production, develops an expectations model for the farm real estate market, and compares predictions from the expectations model with farm real estate prices for the 1920–78 period. Capitalized rent explains only about half of real estate values both in the 1970s and over the longer 1920–78 period. The remainder can be explained by the capitalization of capital gains, including real gains or losses from price level changes.

Land resources and land markets

Publisher Summary Land is a central concept not only in the technical sciences and in professions such as engineering, geology, agriculture, and forestry but also in law and in the social sciences. This chapter discusses the economics of land. There exists an ancient and persistent suspicion that land is not just any commodity or factor of production. Land has played a prominent role in the development of general economic theory, and it retains a special position in some current renditions thereof. There is recurrent debate whether any economic theory that treats land as nothing special can be valid. In the most general versions of the mainstream economic theory, land is treated as a factor of production, and the debate revolves around whether it is useful to reserve a special place for land in formulating the aggregate production function. Land and natural resource concepts remain important for many special purposes in economics. The Ricardian concept of economic rent remains durable and finds application in areas as diverse as land economics, location theory, and welfare change measurement. Agricultural economics, natural resource economics, urban economics, and regional economics are important areas of specialization within economics, and the classic concept of land, which is appropriately updated, plays an important role in each.

The Market Mechanism, Externalities, and Land Economics

The literature on external economies, diseconomies, and indivisibilities is related to past, present, and emerging land management problems. A definition of externalities and indivisibilities is provided and applied to problems of quality, common property resources, and outdoor recreation. Criteria for the evaluation of land management institutions are suggested and discussed. Current and past research efforts are examined in light of the perspective provided by the article. It is suggested that both the tools of neoclassical economics and the relevance of institutional economics might be combined profitably in the study of land economics problems. It was concluded that historical research efforts have tended to be polarized: the production economics-oriented group has been heavily oriented toward the internal aspects of individual firm theory; traditional land economists, while working on relevant problems, have not always made the best of existing theory in the evaluation of land management institutions.

Property Rights and the Potitical Economy of Resource Scarcity

Changes in resource availability place, property rights under stress. Major policy issues exist with respect to rights to land, water, and the ocean fishery. Sometimes these policy issues are confronted in the context of structural changes in property rights, that is, by changing the relationship among those who hold rights both within the private or between the public and private sector. In some instances, changes in resource availability may trigger macro policies designed to affect the distribution of income, employment, or inflation. These macro policies typically also have an indirect but very real effect on property rights.

A pluralistic, pragmatic and evolutionary approach to natural resource management

Abstract This paper demonstrates the partial nature of individual academic disciplines with respect to natural resource management. The paper states the requirements of a satisfactory approach to natural resource management. It provides the philosophic justification for pluralism, pragmatism, and evolution in natural resource policy and thereby provides a framework for interdisciplinary communication.

Is Farming a Constant Cost Industry

Measurement of cost-size relationships for farming has long been an important area of research in agricultural economics. Much of this research has had a farm management and production economics orientation, and firm-industry interdependencies have often been ignored. Research results stemming from such an orientation should be interpreted with care when used for policy purposes. Pecuniary externalities may be of greater importance than indicated by research to this time. A suggestion is made for treating induced technical change as comparable to a pecuniary externality. Questions are raised on both theoretical and empirical grounds whether farming in the United States should be considered a constant cost industry for policy purposes.

Rural Diversity: An American Asset

Rural America is an exceedingly diverse place, and this diversity constitutes a national asset. Diversity can be documented by an examination of any social or economic attribute one wishes to choose—educational attainment, per capita income, occupation, and ethnic background provide examples. This diversity shapes both the public policies applicable to the countryside and the opportunities of rural communities and rural people. Highly centralized public programs and policies, unless they provide for local adaptation, are unlikely to be successful. Many existing federal programs have outlived their usefulness. Federal entitlement programs continue to be enormously important to rural people and can be made even far more effective by recognizing rural differences. Not all rural areas will flourish in the future; the supply of rural places that would like to attract economic activity far exceeds the demand for such places. Exogenous forces that will improve the prospects for some rural areas include an increase in the number of people of retirement age and with a retirement income as well as growth of outdoor recreation and tourism activities. Entrepreneurship will continue to be of great importance as diverse rural places discover ways they can serve an increasingly urban and global society. The cost of distance and the benefits of space are key parameters in establishing the economic framework within which economic development will occur.

Priorities in Agricultural Economics for the 1970's

ECONOMISTS should be exceedingly reluctant to start playing the priority game. There is much current emphasis on goals, objectives, and priorities. However, economists know that priorities are useful only in a comparatively static situation. A change in choice indicators or in production possibilities will change the opportunity cost of a particular choice or decision. If economists believe their own logic, priorities should reflect opportunity cost. The 1970s will not be static; consequently, a statement of professional priorities developed at the beginning of this decade is not likely to have great relevance near the end of the decade. One way of characterizing agricultural economics in the 1960s would be as a decade of discarding small conceptions of social problems. Subspecializations such as farm management, marketing, and resource or land economics tended to yield to broader categories. Agricultural economists looked at problems more and techniques less and began to realize that even agricultural economics itself was too narrow for many purposes. Many will argue that these trends were long overdue and that there is still much more to be accomplished in this respect. These events can be explained in large part by three major environmental factors:

Natural Resource and Environmental Economics: A Retrospective View

This article reviews the methodological and theoretical foundations of natural resource and environmental economics prior to an examination of three examples of topics of current interest in the field. The three examples are nonmarket values, benefit—cost analysis, and the new institutional economics. The article draws on the review of contemporary work to identify a number of topics deserving of attention in subsequent work in this field. The items listed would have the effect of making future research more particular and less doctrinaire.