Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Levente Tímár
Author-X-Name-First: Levente	
Author-X-Name-Last: Tímár
Author-Email: levente.timar@motu.org.nz
Author-Workplace-Name: Motu Economic and Public Policy Research and GNS Science
Title: Rural Land Use and Land Tenure in New Zealand
Abstract:  Private land-use decisions are critical for a broad spectrum of environmental and social outcomes, ranging from water quality and climate change to rural income distribution. I use a large dataset of the land-use decisions of New Zealand landowners to estimate a cross-sectional multinomial logit model of land use. In this model, the optimal land-use choice depends on geophysical attributes of the land, the cost of access to markets, and on land tenure (M?ori freehold title versus general freehold title). I employ the estimated relationship in a counterfactual scenario to assess the overall impact of M?ori tenure on the willingness of landowners to supply land for the four most important rural uses in the country: dairying; sheep or beef farming; plantation forestry; and an economically unproductive use, scrub. This allows me to conjecture about the environmental implications of New Zealand’s land-tenure system.
Length: 55 pages
Creation-Date:  2011-12
File-URL: https://motu-www.motu.org.nz/wpapers/11_13.pdf
Number: 11_13
Classification-JEL: Q15
Keywords: land use, land tenure, discrete choice model
Handle: RePEc:mtu:wpaper:11_13