Cost-Share Program Participation and Family Forest Owners' Past and Intended Future Management Practices

View Journal Article

Date

Sept. 1, 2014

Authors

Nianfu Song, Francisco Aguilar, and Brett Butler

Publication

Journal Article

Reading time

1 minute

Cost-share programs are commonly-used policy tools designed to influence management on privately-owned lands. Widely popular on agricultural lands, these programs and their association with landowner behavior have not been as thoroughly studied on forested lands. Based on a dataset of over 3500 observations and using propensity score matching to reduce possible selection bias, this study found that family forest owners in the U.S. Northern region enrolled in cost-share programs were more actively engaged in both silvicultural and conservation management activities than non-participants. These findings point to the capacity of cost-share public programs to promote better forest management. This study found that cost-share participation varied across size of forest holdings, owners' demographic characteristics, ownership objectives and forest location. Owners of smaller sized forestlands had a lower participation rate and might be a prime target group of future cost-share programs to widen forest and wildlife habitat management.

View Journal Article

Topics

Data and Decision Tools

Authors

Nianfu Song

Francisco Aguilar

Brett Butler

Related Content

In Focus — May 30, 2025

In Focus: Repealing Clean Electricity Tax Credits

In this video, RFF Senior Research Associate McKenna Peplinski discusses the potential effects of repealing tax credits for clean electricity generation.

Media Highlight — Feb 3, 2025

E&E News: “Trump’s 10-for-1 Regs Order Jettisons Rulemaking Revamp”

RFF President and CEO Billy Pizer comments on the revision of Circular A-4, an important piece of federal guidance for cost-benefit analysis.

In Focus — Oct 22, 2024

In Focus: Partisan Views on Climate Change

This video shares insights from polling about how Americans' views on climate change differ depending on political affiliation, with Stanford University Professor and RFF University Fellow Jon Krosnick.

Issue Brief — Jul 10, 2024

The US Department of the Treasury’s Proposed Guidance for the Tech-Neutral Tax Credits

This issue brief outlines the questions answered by the US Department of the Treasury's guidance on technology-neutral tax credits, as well as those that have yet to be addressed.