The Experts below are selected from a list of 3510 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Urs P. Kreuter - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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landowner perceptions of woody plants and prescribed fire in the southern plains usa
PLOS ONE, 2020Co-Authors: Dianne A. Stroman, Urs P. Kreuter, Carissa L WonkkaAbstract:Grassland environments face a number of threats including land use change, changing climate and encroachment of woody plants. In the Southern Plains of the United States, woody plant encroachment threatens traditional agricultural grazing economies in addition to grassland dependent wildlife species. Numerous studies have examined the physical drivers of conversion from grassland to woodland but social drivers may be equally important to understanding the causes of and prescriptions for environmental degradation. In this paper, we report the results of a survey of landowners in the Southern Plains of Texas and Oklahoma in which we asked participants to estimate the current amount of woody plant cover on their land, their preferred amount of woody plant cover and about their perspectives regarding the use of prescribed fire for managing woody plants. Prescribed fire is ecologically and economically one of the most effective tools for maintaining grasslands but many landowners do not use this tool due to lack of knowledge, lack of resources and concerns over safety and legal liability. We found that while most of our respondents did express a desire for less woody plant cover on their land, woody plant preference did not affect landowner's use of prescribed fire. However, belonging to a prescribed burn association and owning larger properties were correlated with increased use of prescribed fire. Woody plant cover preference was significantly influenced by Landownership motivations, with hunters and other recreational motivated landowners preferring more trees and ranchers preferring fewer. This is important because throughout most of our study area, there has been a steady shift from agricultural production to amenity or recreational Landownership, a trend that may undermine efforts to restore or maintain open grasslands. Future outreach efforts to promote prescribed fire to maintain grasslands should more actively support prescribed burn associations, which is an effective vehicle for increasing prescribed fire use by private landowners.
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factors influencing land management practices on conservation easement protected landscapes
Society & Natural Resources, 2015Co-Authors: Dianne A. Stroman, Urs P. KreuterAbstract:The goal of this article is to investigate factors influencing conservation-oriented land management practices on land holdings with conservation easements. We report the results of a mail survey that produced responses from 251 out of a total of 518 landowners with a permanent conservation easement on their property. We predicted that landowner satisfaction with their easement and good relationships between landowners and easement holders would be positively correlated with the amount of conservation-oriented land management practices. However, we found Landownership motivations to be a stronger predictor of active land management. We also found significant management differences between landowners with different easement holders. The results of this study suggest the need for increased easement holder capacity supporting targeted outreach with landowners; increased monitoring of ecological targets on easement properties; promotion of landowner participation in peer-to-peer management networks; and incre...
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perpetual conservation easements and landowners evaluating easement knowledge satisfaction and partner organization relationships
Journal of Environmental Management, 2014Co-Authors: Dianne A. Stroman, Urs P. KreuterAbstract:Conservation easements are being more widely used to facilitate permanent land conservation. While landowners who initially place a conservation easement on their land are generally highly motivated to protect the conservation values of their land, changes in Landownership may hinder long-term active landowner support for these easements. Maintaining such support is critical for ensuring their effectiveness as a conservation tool. Our research reports on results from a mail survey sent to landowners in Texas who own property encumbered with perpetual conservation easements. They were asked about their level of satisfaction concerning their conservation easement and the relationship with their easement holder. Additionally, landowners were asked how well they remembered and understood the terms of their conservation easement. We also examined institutional aspects of easement holding organizations and variables associated with Landownership that affected these attitudes. Among institutional factors, frequency of contact between landowners and easement holders and the category of agency (federal, state and local or non-governmental agency) were significant in determining level of satisfaction with the easement and perceived relationship with the easement holder. Landowner factors affecting these same issues included easement grantor or successive generation landowner, gender and motivations driving Landownership. We did not find any significant variables related to landowners' knowledge about their easement. Management implications from this study suggest that easement holders should increase staff capacity capable of providing targeted landowner technical assistance and outreach beyond compliance monitoring. Additionally, Landownership motivations should be considered by easement holders when deciding whether to accept an easement. Finally, expressed dissatisfaction with federal governmental easement holding institutions should be explored further.
Ludger Woessmann - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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the effect of investment in children s education on fertility in 1816 prussia
2010Co-Authors: Sascha O Becker, Francesco Cinnirella, Ludger WoessmannAbstract:The interaction between investment in children’s education and parental fertility is crucial in recent theories of the transition from Malthusian stagnation to modern economic growth. This paper contributes to the literature on the child quantity-quality trade-off with new county-level evidence for Prussia in 1816, several decades before the demographic transition. We find a significant negative causal effect of education on fertility, which is robust to accounting for spatial autocorrelation. The causal effect of education is identified through exogenous variation in enrollment rates due to differences in Landownership inequality. A comparison with estimates for 1849 suggests that the preference for quality relative to quantity might have increased during the first half of the nineteenth century.
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The trade-off between fertility and education: evidence from before the demographic transition
Journal of Economic Growth, 2010Co-Authors: Sascha O Becker, Francesco Cinnirella, Ludger WoessmannAbstract:The trade-off between child quantity and quality is a crucial ingredient of unified growth models that explain the transition from Malthusian stagnation to modern growth. We present first evidence that such a trade-off indeed existed already in the nineteenth century, exploiting a unique census-based dataset of 334 Prussian counties in 1849. Furthermore, we find that causation between fertility and education runs both ways, based on separate instrumental-variable models that instrument fertility by sex ratios and education by Landownership inequality and distance to Wittenberg. Education in 1849 also predicts the fertility transition in 1880–1905.
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the trade off between fertility and education evidence from before the demographic transition
Social Science Research Network, 2009Co-Authors: Sascha O Becker, Francesco Cinnirella, Ludger WoessmannAbstract:The trade-off between child quantity and education is a crucial ingredient of unified growth models that explain the transition from Malthusian stagnation to modern growth. We present first evidence that such a trade-off indeed existed before the demographic transition, exploiting a unique census-based dataset of 334 Prussian counties in 1849. Estimating two separate instrumental-variable models that instrument education by Landownership inequality and distance to Wittenberg and fertility by previous-generation fertility and sex-imbalance ratio, we find that causation between fertility and education runs both ways. Furthermore, education in 1849 predicts the fertility transition in 1880-1905.
Dianne A. Stroman - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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landowner perceptions of woody plants and prescribed fire in the southern plains usa
PLOS ONE, 2020Co-Authors: Dianne A. Stroman, Urs P. Kreuter, Carissa L WonkkaAbstract:Grassland environments face a number of threats including land use change, changing climate and encroachment of woody plants. In the Southern Plains of the United States, woody plant encroachment threatens traditional agricultural grazing economies in addition to grassland dependent wildlife species. Numerous studies have examined the physical drivers of conversion from grassland to woodland but social drivers may be equally important to understanding the causes of and prescriptions for environmental degradation. In this paper, we report the results of a survey of landowners in the Southern Plains of Texas and Oklahoma in which we asked participants to estimate the current amount of woody plant cover on their land, their preferred amount of woody plant cover and about their perspectives regarding the use of prescribed fire for managing woody plants. Prescribed fire is ecologically and economically one of the most effective tools for maintaining grasslands but many landowners do not use this tool due to lack of knowledge, lack of resources and concerns over safety and legal liability. We found that while most of our respondents did express a desire for less woody plant cover on their land, woody plant preference did not affect landowner's use of prescribed fire. However, belonging to a prescribed burn association and owning larger properties were correlated with increased use of prescribed fire. Woody plant cover preference was significantly influenced by Landownership motivations, with hunters and other recreational motivated landowners preferring more trees and ranchers preferring fewer. This is important because throughout most of our study area, there has been a steady shift from agricultural production to amenity or recreational Landownership, a trend that may undermine efforts to restore or maintain open grasslands. Future outreach efforts to promote prescribed fire to maintain grasslands should more actively support prescribed burn associations, which is an effective vehicle for increasing prescribed fire use by private landowners.
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factors influencing land management practices on conservation easement protected landscapes
Society & Natural Resources, 2015Co-Authors: Dianne A. Stroman, Urs P. KreuterAbstract:The goal of this article is to investigate factors influencing conservation-oriented land management practices on land holdings with conservation easements. We report the results of a mail survey that produced responses from 251 out of a total of 518 landowners with a permanent conservation easement on their property. We predicted that landowner satisfaction with their easement and good relationships between landowners and easement holders would be positively correlated with the amount of conservation-oriented land management practices. However, we found Landownership motivations to be a stronger predictor of active land management. We also found significant management differences between landowners with different easement holders. The results of this study suggest the need for increased easement holder capacity supporting targeted outreach with landowners; increased monitoring of ecological targets on easement properties; promotion of landowner participation in peer-to-peer management networks; and incre...
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perpetual conservation easements and landowners evaluating easement knowledge satisfaction and partner organization relationships
Journal of Environmental Management, 2014Co-Authors: Dianne A. Stroman, Urs P. KreuterAbstract:Conservation easements are being more widely used to facilitate permanent land conservation. While landowners who initially place a conservation easement on their land are generally highly motivated to protect the conservation values of their land, changes in Landownership may hinder long-term active landowner support for these easements. Maintaining such support is critical for ensuring their effectiveness as a conservation tool. Our research reports on results from a mail survey sent to landowners in Texas who own property encumbered with perpetual conservation easements. They were asked about their level of satisfaction concerning their conservation easement and the relationship with their easement holder. Additionally, landowners were asked how well they remembered and understood the terms of their conservation easement. We also examined institutional aspects of easement holding organizations and variables associated with Landownership that affected these attitudes. Among institutional factors, frequency of contact between landowners and easement holders and the category of agency (federal, state and local or non-governmental agency) were significant in determining level of satisfaction with the easement and perceived relationship with the easement holder. Landowner factors affecting these same issues included easement grantor or successive generation landowner, gender and motivations driving Landownership. We did not find any significant variables related to landowners' knowledge about their easement. Management implications from this study suggest that easement holders should increase staff capacity capable of providing targeted landowner technical assistance and outreach beyond compliance monitoring. Additionally, Landownership motivations should be considered by easement holders when deciding whether to accept an easement. Finally, expressed dissatisfaction with federal governmental easement holding institutions should be explored further.
Isabel Lambrecht - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Landownership and the gender gap in agriculture insights from northern ghana
Land Use Policy, 2020Co-Authors: Phanwin Yokying, Isabel LambrechtAbstract:Abstract Land provides the basis for food production and is an indispensable input for economic livelihoods in rural areas. Landownership is strongly associated with social and economic power. This holds not only across communities and households, but also within households. The link between Landownership and women’s empowerment has been relatively well documented in general, but not specifically in relation to agriculture. This paper aims to fill this gap by analyzing how self-reported primary ownership of land is associated with agency and achievements in agriculture among female and male farmers in northern Ghana. We use a recursive bivariate probit model on indicators in four domains: decisions on agricultural cultivation, decisions on farm income, agricultural association membership, and time allocation. Our empirical estimates indicate that primary Landownership is positively correlated with decisions on agricultural cultivation. Yet, we also find that the gender gaps in participation in cultivation decisions and the use of agricultural earnings continue to persist among male and female primary landowners. Our findings underscore the importance of land in enhancing women’s agency, but also point out that policies aiming to encourage women to become primary landowners (solely or jointly with their spouses) may not suffice to reduce gender inequality in agriculture.
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Landownership and the gender gap in agriculture disappointing insights from northern ghana
Research Papers in Economics, 2019Co-Authors: Phanwin Yokying, Isabel LambrechtAbstract:Land provides the basis for food production and is an indispensable input for economic livelihoods in rural areas. Landownership is strongly associated with social and economic power, not only across communities and households, but also within households. The link between Landownership and women’s empowerment has been relatively well documented in general, but not specifically in relation to agriculture. This paper aims to fill this gap by analyzing how ownership of land is associated with agency and achievements in agriculture among female and male farmers in northern Ghana, a region transitioning from customary land tenure without individual ownership rights towards a more individualized and market-based tenure system. We use a recursive bivariate probit model and focus on eight different indicators in four distinct domains: decisions on agricultural cultivation, decisions on farm income, agricultural association membership, and time allocation. Our empirical estimates indicate that Landownership is positively correlated with men’s and women’s agency in agriculture, namely in decisions on agricultural cultivation and membership in agricultural association. Yet, we also find that the gender gaps in participation in cultivation decisions, the use of agricultural earnings, and in agricultural workload continue to persist among those who own land. While the results underscore the importance of land as a resource that can enhance women’s agency, they also point out that policies aiming to solely advance land rights may not be sufficient to eradicate or even reduce gender inequality in agriculture.
Francesco Cinnirella - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Landownership concentration and the expansion of education
Journal of Development Economics, 2016Co-Authors: Francesco Cinnirella, Erik HornungAbstract:We study the relationship between large Landownership concentration and the expansion of mass education in nineteenth-century Prussia. Cross-sectional estimates show a negative association between Landownership concentration and enrollment rates. Fixed-effects panel estimates indicate that regions with an initially stronger Landownership concentration exhibit increasing enrollment rates. This relationship is not driven by differences in the supply of schooling. We argue that the implementation of agricultural reforms including the stepwise abolition of serfdom is an important driver of the change in enrollment. The results are consistent with the interpretation that emancipation from labor coercion increased the private demand for education.
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Landownership concentration and the expansion of education
Research Papers in Economics, 2013Co-Authors: Francesco Cinnirella, Erik HornungAbstract:This paper studies the effect of Landownership concentration on school enrollment for nineteenth century Prussia. Prussia is an interesting laboratory given its decentralized educational system and the presence of heterogeneous agricultural institutions. We find that Landownership concentration, a proxy for the institution of serfdom, has a negative effect on schooling. This effect diminishes substantially towards the end of the century. Causality of this relationship is confirmed by introducing soil texture to identify exogenous farm-size variation. Panel estimates further rule out unobserved heterogeneity. We present several robustness checks which shed some light on possible mechanisms.
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the effect of investment in children s education on fertility in 1816 prussia
2010Co-Authors: Sascha O Becker, Francesco Cinnirella, Ludger WoessmannAbstract:The interaction between investment in children’s education and parental fertility is crucial in recent theories of the transition from Malthusian stagnation to modern economic growth. This paper contributes to the literature on the child quantity-quality trade-off with new county-level evidence for Prussia in 1816, several decades before the demographic transition. We find a significant negative causal effect of education on fertility, which is robust to accounting for spatial autocorrelation. The causal effect of education is identified through exogenous variation in enrollment rates due to differences in Landownership inequality. A comparison with estimates for 1849 suggests that the preference for quality relative to quantity might have increased during the first half of the nineteenth century.
-
The trade-off between fertility and education: evidence from before the demographic transition
Journal of Economic Growth, 2010Co-Authors: Sascha O Becker, Francesco Cinnirella, Ludger WoessmannAbstract:The trade-off between child quantity and quality is a crucial ingredient of unified growth models that explain the transition from Malthusian stagnation to modern growth. We present first evidence that such a trade-off indeed existed already in the nineteenth century, exploiting a unique census-based dataset of 334 Prussian counties in 1849. Furthermore, we find that causation between fertility and education runs both ways, based on separate instrumental-variable models that instrument fertility by sex ratios and education by Landownership inequality and distance to Wittenberg. Education in 1849 also predicts the fertility transition in 1880–1905.
-
the trade off between fertility and education evidence from before the demographic transition
Social Science Research Network, 2009Co-Authors: Sascha O Becker, Francesco Cinnirella, Ludger WoessmannAbstract:The trade-off between child quantity and education is a crucial ingredient of unified growth models that explain the transition from Malthusian stagnation to modern growth. We present first evidence that such a trade-off indeed existed before the demographic transition, exploiting a unique census-based dataset of 334 Prussian counties in 1849. Estimating two separate instrumental-variable models that instrument education by Landownership inequality and distance to Wittenberg and fertility by previous-generation fertility and sex-imbalance ratio, we find that causation between fertility and education runs both ways. Furthermore, education in 1849 predicts the fertility transition in 1880-1905.
