Do Buyers' Characteristics and Personal Relationships Affect Agricultural Land Prices?

The influence of buyer and personal relationship characteristics on agricultural land prices has received little attention in the literature. Recently, Perry and Robison (2001) used a restricted nonlinear specification to model the influence of personal relationships on the implicit prices of land characteristics. In this paper a more flexible alternative model is proposed. An approach to general model specification and model selection is presented. The results indicate that buyer characteristics and personal relationships exert nonuniform effects on the implicit prices of land characteristics. Our results support the hypothesis that social capital affects the terms of trade in the land market.