Biofuel policies (blend mandate or tax credit) have impacts on food and energy prices, and on land-use. The magnitude of these effects depends on the market response to price, and thus on the agricultural supply curve, which, in turn, depends on the land availability (quantity and agronomic quality) and relative prices. To understand these relationships, we develop a theoretical framework with ...

Urban economics emphasizes: the spatial arrangements of households, firms, and capital in metropolitan areas; the externalities which arise from the proximity of households and land uses; and the public policy issues which arise from the interplay of these economic forces.

In defense of the sprawling, low-density development which increasingly characterizes modern cities, Gordon and Richardson (1986, 1996) argue that the urban spatial structure generated by market forces reflects the will of the people. Planners, in contrast, typically have little faith in either the efficiency or equity of market-determined outcomes, and advocate detailed land use planning. To e...

This chapter is an introduction to the economics of the connection between urban transportation and land use. The nature of the transportation system strongly influences the patterns of land use in an urban area. Indeed, the long-run histories of urban areas sometimes are identified with the dominant mode of transportation of the time; the age of rail, the age of the automobile, and so on. Supp...

Economists increasingly face opportunities to collaborate with ecologists on landscape-level analyses of socioeconomic and ecological processes. Tnis often calls for developing empirical models to project land use change as input into ecological models. Providing ecologists with the land use information they desire can present many challenges regarding data, modeling, and econometrics. This pap...

This paper considers the present state of applied economics and the difficulties of integrating its findings and insights with those of other social sciences. The philosophical basis of social science is re-considered as a route to resolving these difficulties. Without a more integrated narrative about how our social systems work, applied economics, and all applied social sciences, run the subs...