UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA Food and Resource Economics FRE ECON 374 Land Economics This course will deal with an economic overview of problems related to land use Specifically we will focus on the theory and analysis of land rent land evaluation efficiency of land as an input to production property rights land based institutions demand aspects of land and land based resources and public policies that address the conservation and management of land resources Instructor contact information Dave Marcouiller Visiting Associate Professor Faculty of Agricultural Sciences University of British Columbia 337 MacMillan Building 2357 Main Mall Vancouver B C Canada V6T 1Z4 Telephone 604 822 2144 Email dmar interchange ubc ca Scheduled meeting time for Summer Term I 2002 MTWThF 9 00 a m 12 00 noon Class meeting location TBA Office hours Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday 7 30 a m 8 30 a m Course objectives intent The objectives of this course are to provide students with an overview of the economic theory and analysis of issues pertaining to land use Upon completion of the course students should be familiar with the basic aspects of land measurement and evaluation concepts of land rent and economic welfare efficiency and equity of using land within a production context alternative forms of land use and approaches to non market valuation of land based resources public policies affecting land use approaches to land use planning public land management compatibility of alternative land uses Course requirements There are three primary requirements of this course 1 2 problem sets 20 percent problem set There will be three problem sets due May 21 May 27 and May 31 that will evaluate the student s understanding of course content These problem sets will cover material studied during the prior week final examination 40 percent The final exam will be comprehensive and intends to evaluate the student s understanding of topics covered in the course schedule TBA Grading will follow standard percentages as found below 90 100 A 85 89 A 80 84 A 76 79 B 72 75 B 68 71 B 64 67 C 60 63 C 55 59 C 1 50 54 D 0 49 Fail Reading materials Required textbook vanKooten G Cornelius 1993 Land Resource Economics and Sustainable Development Economic Policies and the Common Good Vancouver B C University of British Columbia Press Available from the Bookstore for approximately 50 35 plus GST Additional required readings I ve place several copies of the following required readings on reserve in the MacMillan Library 3rd Floor MacMillan Dates reflect the days during which material found in the readings will be discussed May 14 15 Barlowe R 1986 Land Resource Economics The Economics of Real Estate Fourth Edition Englewood Cliffs NJ Prentice Hall May 16 Brueckner J 2000 Urban sprawl Diagnosis and remedies International Regional Science Review 23 160 171 Esparza A and J Caruthers 2000 Land use planning and exurbanization in the rural Mountain West Journal of the American Planning Association 20 23 36 May 17 Rudzitis G 1999 Amenities increasingly draw people to the rural West Rural Development Perspectives 14 2 9 13 Deller S C T Tsai D W Marcouiller and D B K English 2001 The role of amenities and quality of life in rural economic growth Am Journal of Agric Economics 83 2 352 365 May 27 Wynn G 1992 The rise of Vancouver Chapter 4 Vancouver and Its Region Pp 69 148 May 28 Halseth G 1999 Disentangling policy governance and local contention over change in Vancouver s rural urban fringe Chapter 8 151 178 of Contested Countryside Furuseth and Lapping eds Hants England Ashgate Publ Ltd May 29 Marcouiller D W 1998 Environmental resources as latent primary factors of production in tourism The case of forest based commercial recreation Tourism Economics 4 2 131 145 Course Outline The following schedule is a general road map for topical discussions Monday May 13 Introductions and course outline expectations An economic concept of land land as a factor of production productive forms of land use alternative forms of land use availability of land for economic uses social and demographic trends Tuesday May 14 Definitions and characteristics of land definitions and measurement attributes of land characteristics of land based resources land use and compatibility of alternative uses 2 Reading Assignment vanKooten pp 1 11 Reading Assignment vanKooten pp 15 29 Barlowe pp 131 155 Supply of land The economic determinations of land rent economic principles affecting land use the concept of land rent productivity of land as an element of land rent Wednesday May 15 Reading Assignment Supply of land The economic determinants of land rent continued Barlowe pp 218 264 Ricardian land rent continued distance to market as an element of land rent VonThunen land rent spatial array of alternative land uses the urban bid rent cone locational factors associated with land rent Thursday May 16 Locational factors associated with land use the economic determinants of urban sprawl an economic critique of urban sprawl amenities as a driver of exurbanization the exurbanization process Reading Assignment Brueckner reading Esparza and Carruthers reading Friday May 17 Locational factors con t amenity resources as an element of land rent efficiency of land response to inputs externalities of market based rental determinations Interaction of urban centers urban hierarchy estimating extent of urban influences gravity models Reading Assignment Rudzitis reading Deller et al reading Distribute Problem Set 1 due Tuesday May 21 Monday May 20 class not held Victoria Day Tuesday May 21 An economic assessment of welfare measurement consumer surplus producer surplus Welfare economics alternative forms of demand in land economics compensating and equivalent variations public goods Reading Assignment vanKooten pp 30 46 Wednesday May 22 Relationships between alternative welfare measures Externalities of land use issues of property rights public policies to address externalities internalizing externalities Reading Assignment vanKooten pp 47 77 3 Thursday May 23 Externalities of land use continued Project evaluation with respect to land use cost benefit analysis estimating the costs of alternative land uses estimating the benefits of alternative land uses Friday May 24 Project evaluation continued Approaches to non market valuation a spectrum of land based goods private to public goods rivalry and exclusivity as a basis for categorization stated preference approaches revealed preference