MEASURING THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF SITE CHARACTERISTICS TO THE VALUE OF AGRICULTURAL LAND

This study examines the effects of different combinations and qualities of selected site characteristics on the value of agricultural land in six substate regions in Washington State. The analysis follows the general hedonic regression form, but incorporates nonnegativity constraints on the models. This, coupled with an adaptation of Bierens's conditional moment test, yields consistent results showing (a) land value is a function of site characteristics, (b) land markets in Washington State are highly regional, (c) parsimonious empirical models can provide adequate representations of expected land values, and (d) nonnegative truncation is a valuable procedure in hedonic models.