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CONSERVATION LAND AMENITIES AND REGIONAL ECONOMIES: A POSTMATCHING DIFFERENCE‐IN‐DIFFERENCES ANALYSIS OF THE NORTHWEST FOREST PLAN
Author(s) -
Chen Yong,
Lewis David J.,
Weber Bruce
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal of regional science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.171
H-Index - 79
eISSN - 1467-9787
pISSN - 0022-4146
DOI - 10.1111/jors.12253
Subject(s) - amenity , geography , plan (archaeology) , population growth , population , agricultural economics , business , economics , demography , archaeology , finance , sociology
The 1994 Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) resulted in the protection of over 11 million acres of public forestland in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. This paper quantifies the amenity effect arising from protected NWFP lands on long‐run community economic growth. Using community fixed effects and postmatching panel regression to control for many sources of bias, we find highly localized and positive amenity impacts on the growth in median income, population, and property values for small communities close to protected NWFP land, as compared to communities far from the NWFP. We find no effect on medium‐sized communities.