Economic essays

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1753623200

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-136107

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Economic essays

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: Macmillan

Year of publication:: 1927

Scope:: viii, 368 S.; Ill., graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Land economics / Richard T. Ely

Collection:: Economics Books

124 ECONOMIC ESSAYS IN HONOR OF JOHN BATES CLARK LA that we have never before had a systematic discussion of urban land economics. The economists have so generally confined them- selves to agricultural land that when we use the term, land economics, people are inclined to think that we are talking about agricultural land. The economics of forestry has already received discussion, and it is justified by the peculiarities of forest land and the difficulties to its wise utilization. As the differentiation goes on in theory and practice, we find an increasing number of kinds of land. Classification is, therefore, essential in any discussion of land policies, and the classification will vary with the purposes in view. For instance, from the standpoint of utilization, land can be broadly classified into agricultural, forest, mineral and urban land, and growing atten- tion is being given to recreational land and also to water resources. The next natural division of land economics is a study of land utilization. Classification and utilization are closely related and interdependent. There are many uses competing for the land. Agriculture, forests, mines, water resources, recreation facilities, urban sites are all making demands upon the land. Obviously the main problem here is to maintain the proper balance between these competing uses. Then there is the question as to whether the different demands necessarily conflict with each other or can one use be made to serve two purposes as in Germany, where the forest areas supply both a timber crop and recreational oppor- tunities? It is for a national land policy, which has facts sup- plied by scientific research behind it, to work out a program for land utilization which can integrate or balance these separate uses to produce the maximum economic benefits for society. This problem of balance in relation to the land factor may be considered from three angles. There is first of all the matter of maintaining a balance between one form of land utilization and another. The most clear-cut illustration is that afforded by the use of land for the production of staple agricultural products and for the production of trees. We have at present relative overproduction of certain staple crops, which means prices so low that farming is too generally carried on either without any profit or with a very low rate as compared with returns in other indus- tries. At the same time we have a relative underproduction of

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