Individual Choice and Regional Acreage Response to Cost-Sharing in the South, 1971-1981

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Abstract
Total acreage responding to a given economic incentive is a key measure of the effectiveness of many government forest land-use programs. Examples are the FIP and America the Beautiful programs. Acreage response depends both on landowner behavior and on land characteristics. Prediction of this response for new or untried government incentives consequently requires simultaneous estimation of landowner land-use decisions and of the number of acres affected by the decisions. A method to predict aggregate acreage response to proposed land-use programs is described in the paper. This method is illustrated by an analysis of how cost-sharing could have affected NIPF owner investment in pine regeneration on harvested lands in the South in 1971-1981. Results show that cost-sharing may have encouraged 70% of the regeneration investment observed during the period, and that changes in the cost-share incentive would have been an effective way to change the amount of pine acreage planted or seeded in the South during this period. Application of the method to proposed future programs would require a new area frame sample survey. For. Sci. 37(1):175-190.

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