ABSTRACT
Land provides a complex mix of goods and services to society, which is dependent upon its use. Land use and management present a unique economic challenge due to land’s fixed supply and location, the enormous variety of potential private and public uses, and the potential for important external effects and jointly produced goods and services resulting from land management choices. The economic complexity of land use decisions, particularly the potential for land use choices to have intended and unintended effects on neighboring landowners, communities and the broader society, has generated a web of private, public and mixed private/public actions to manage land toward private or public objectives. For example, land is bought and sold in real estate markets, but it is often encumbered by covenants or zoning regulations intended to limit the scope of land use alternatives available to its owner. Property rights are neither complete nor sacrosanct. Private individuals enter into land markets, as do profit-making corporations, public-representing local, state and national governments, and various types of constituency-serving nongovernmental organizations (e.g., churches and land trusts).
