Environmental Recovery after the Dust Bowl: Implication of Land Policies in the Great Plains

Abstract

Land policies, especially those related to land restoration, take significant time to reveal any detectable effect on environmental quality. This paper evaluates farmland conservation programs from their introduction to capture the shortand long-term effects on the environment. I demonstrate that current differences in environmental outcomes within the Great Plains can be traced to the introduction of farmland conservation activities in the 1930s. Using spatial and temporal variation in the policy, I identify that the policy has a considerable immediate effect on the agricultural landscape. Spatial heterogeneity depends on agrarian land tenancy, access to irrigation, institutional, political, and demographic factors. Also, using spatial variation in federal planning map and incentive structure for land conversion, I present that the initial conversion of land through many institutional changes had persistent effects on soil erosion in the long term. Using the policy’s discontinuity in some years, I reveal that the likelihood of landowners’ deciding to restore grassland significantly decreases if the federal subsidy is removed.