Did 1933 new deal legislation contribute to farm real estate values: A regional analysis

The proportion of land values generated by farm program payments and farm returns are examined using an extended income capitalization model. The extended income capitalization model addresses the identification issue introduced by the counter-cyclical nature of farm program payments and farm returns. Procedures are presented that allow the estimation of agriculture land value shares without requiring explicit knowledge or assumptions with respect to the net land rental shares of farm returns or farm program payments. Results from the panel recursive or triangular-structure simultaneous equation model applied to 48 states in the U.S. for the period 1938–2010 indicate on average 24–29.2 percent and 76–70.8 percent of the agricultural land values can be identified with farm program payments and farm returns, respectively. Spatially, at the resource regional level the contribution of farm program payments was as low as 20.5 percent in the Eastern Upland region compared to a high of 69 percent in the Mississippi Seaboard region.