Fields: agricultural and natural resource economics, water resources, conservation

Selected Interests
  • Irrigation and agricultural water use
  • Spatial resolution of policy instruments in natural resource management
  • Property rights and natural resource use
  • Agricultural land values

My Google Scholar link

Publications in Academic Journals (* denotes graduate student co-authorship)
  • Sampson, G.S. and J. Yu. 2026. "Unpacking the Farmland Capitalization Effect of Ethanol Establishment." Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Accepted. 
We unpack the impact of expansions in ethanol production—as measured by proximity to newly constructed ethanol plants and capacity expansions—on  farmland values using land transaction data from Kansas in combination with modern causal inference techniques. We first show that Two-Way Fixed Effects (TWFE) estimation with data aggregated to the county and township level leads to an average land value effect ranging from 4% to 9% for parcels located within 50km of an ethanol plant. However, using a modern difference-in-difference estimator, we find no evidence of a statistically significant effect on farmland values. Furthermore, our analysis reveals no indication that land value proximity premiums rose following the 2005 Energy Policy Act. We find evidence that the average treatment effect detected by conventional TWFE is largely driven by land transactions in the proximity of ethanol plants that were established prior to the 2005 Energy Policy Act. Proximity to ethanol plants established after the 2005 Energy Policy Act has a smaller and less robust effect on land values. This study examines the factors influencing producer adoption of cover cropping and no-till farming, two key carbon sequestration practices, within the context of voluntary Carbon Credit Programs (CCPs) in Kansas. Using a mixed-methods survey that combines discrete choice experiments with farm-level data from 370 producers, we estimate random parameter latent class models to assess preferences over contract design, payment levels, and agri-environmental constraints. Findings reveal substantial misalignments between current CCP structures and producer needs: nearly half of respondents consistently rejected all contract offers, while those most willing to enroll were often already using the promoted practices, raising concerns about the additionality of these initiatives. Key barriers include long contract durations, insufficient payments, and agri-environmental limitations such as drought and wheat-based rotations. These results highlight the need for more flexible, regionally tailored carbon programs and provide actionable insights for policymakers seeking to enhance the adoption and climate impact of agricultural carbon sequestration initiatives.* Recipient of 2026 Western Agricultural Economics Association Outstanding Published Research Award
* Top cited article in AJAE 2025
There is limited empirical evidence on the value of formal property rights to natural resources when they are not transferable and there is regulatory uncertainty about enforcement. This paper takes a hedonic approach to understanding how three core features of groundwater property rights—access, allocation, and seniority—are capitalized into agricultural land values in the High Plains Aquifer region of Kansas. We find that groundwater access rights confer an average land value premium of 71%, or $1,445/acre in 2019 dollars. Water rights having larger allocations and more seniority are more highly valued in the land market. The seniority effect is small but is consistent with more junior rights facing greater regulatory risk of curtailment. Taken together, these results suggest that the land market capitalizes constraints to groundwater pumping provided by groundwater property rights. We use our empirical estimates to quantify the distributional costs of modifying existing patterns of pumping, a common challenge of groundwater management organizations seeking to improve the sustainability of extraction. The effectiveness of groundwater in fulfilling crop water deficits depends on its quality and quantity. This paper examines the relationship between irrigators’ stated concerns over groundwater quality and groundwater quantity and their past water use and cropping decisions. Information on irrigator concerns over groundwater quality and quantity is obtained from 626 survey responses of agricultural producers in the Kansas portion of the High Plains Aquifer. We combine 20 years of field-level water use and cropping data with each of the 626 survey responses. We find that irrigators indicating elevated concern over either groundwater quality or groundwater quantity correlates with less total water use, fewer total irrigated acres, and fewer acres of irrigated corn. Additionally, concerns over groundwater quantity generally correlate with a greater reduction in water use along multiple water use margins compared to equal concerns over groundwater quality. Water is a critical input to agricultural production in arid regions. Understanding irrigator perspectives and determining their information and technical needs are critical to increasing water conservation while maintaining profitable yields. This paper summarizes survey data for 140 irrigators operating in the High Plains Aquifer portion of southcentral Kansas. We document adoption of different farm management practices, key challenges facing irrigators, information gaps, and qualitative information obtained from open-ended questions. Survey response patterns are discussed in the context of local water use conflicts and water governance. Global biofuel production has increased over tenfold since 2000 and numerous biofuel production plants have been built in the Great Plains region. We estimate the impact of biofuel plants on the agricultural economy with county-level data on the number of farm operators, net farm income, and agricultural land values during 1997 to 2017 for 798 counties in twelve Great Plains states. We find that biofuel production facilities have a small negative association with the number of farm operators, but positive associations with net farm income and farmland values in the county where the biofuel plant is located and neighboring (adjacent) counties. Sustained positive associations of biofuel production with farm income and land values are likely to depend on the continuation of national and state government programs of ethanol blend mandates and tax credits. Diminished government bioenergy support could lead to declining farm income and land values in areas near plants.
  • Gardner*, G. and G.S. Sampson. 2022. "Land Value Impacts of Ethanol Market Expansion by Irrigation Status." Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, doi: 10.22004/ag.econ.313314.
We examine capitalization of ethanol plant construction and capacity expansion into surrounding irrigated and non-irrigated farmland values using data on every land transaction in Kansas from 1995 to 2017 in a hedonic price model. We hypothesize that corn prices and thus land values near an ethanol plant are higher than for parcels located farther from a plant. We further hypothesize that ethanol market expansion is capitalized into irrigated parcels to a greater extent than non-irrigated parcels due to differences in crop water demand and precipitation in Kansas. We estimate that an irrigated (non-irrigated) parcel having one or more ethanol plants situated within 50km fetches an 8.8% (6.3%) price premium relative to more distant irrigated (non-irrigated) parcels, on average. We estimate the average marginal effect of a 10 million gallon per year increase in ethanol capacity within 50km is a 4.8% (1.8%) increase in irrigated (non-irrigated) land value. Global ethanol production has grown rapidly due to national renewable fuel programs. Concern has grown over impacts that land conversion and crop displacement driven by ethanol feedstock production might have on water resources. In this paper, we examine irrigation decisions of agricultural producers in the Kansas portion of the High Plains Aquifer in response to local ethanol market expansion. To identify the effects of ethanol expansion on irrigation decisions, we examine field-level data on irrigation water use, irrigated acreage, and crop decisions for the years 2003-2017 for nearly 23,000 fields in Kansas. We measure the response of three irrigation decisions, (i) irrigated acreage, (ii) irrigation per acre, and (iii) total water use to the introduction and capacity expansion of an ethanol plant. We find that ethanol market expansion did lead to increases in irrigation water use. Specifically, a 10% increase in ethanol capacity within 50KM increases annual water use by 0.22% per field (4.8 acre-inches/field). We predict that ethanol markets accounted for about 4% of total irrigated water use in 2017.
  • Gardner*, G., G.S. Sampson, D. Presley. 2021. "Irrigator Perceptions and the Value of Groundwater Quality in the High Plains Aquifer." Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, DOI: https://doi.org/10.2489/jswc.2021.00118.
Groundwater is critical to irrigated production in many arid and semi-arid regions of the world. Groundwater that is low in quality presents limited value to farmers as an input to agricultural production. In this paper, we present findings from a survey of irrigator perceptions and irrigation water testing behavior targeted to producers in the Kansas portion of the High Plains Aquifer. Additionally, we estimate the value of an incremental increase in the quality of groundwater for agricultural irrigation using contingent valuation. We find that 30% of respondents have either “moderate” or “major” concern over the agricultural impacts of irrigation water quality. Additionally, 20% of respondents indicate that water quality has had either “moderate” or “major” impacts on their crop yields. Lastly, we find a median willingness to pay of $39/well for an incremental increase in irrigation water quality, as measured by reduced salt content. We estimate the effects of utility-scale wind turbines on agricultural land values in Kansas using parcel-level transaction data from 2001 to 2017 in a hedonic price model. By matching transaction data and wind turbine data at the common land units scale, we are able to ascertain on-farm effects as well as near-farm effects. Across all our analyses, the preponderance of results suggests that wind turbines do not affect agricultural property values, both on-farm and nearby, in a statistically significant way. Thus, our results cannot confirm that wind turbines will increase land values when installed on a parcel. The effects of the Conservation Reserve Program spiepr132 (CRP) on farmland values is investigated using a set of parcel‐level data for land sales in Kansas over the period 1998 to 2014. The sales data are used to estimate a hedonic model of land values that allows for the opportunity cost of CRP enrollment to vary across space and time. Factors impacting the opportunity costs include the relative productivity of land, returns to farming, and the time remaining under the CRP contracts. We find that the discount associated with having land under CRP contract averages 7%. We investigate the role of peer effects in the diffusion of an important water saving irrigation technology: Low Energy Precise Application (LEPA). Using detailed irrigation behavior data for growers in the High Plains Aquifer region of Kansas covering 1990-2014, we find clear evidence of peer influence in adoption of LEPA, net of environmental factors. Specifically, an additional neighboring LEPA installation within 1 km increases the probability of adoption by about 0.3 percentage points, on average, and this effect diminishes with distance. Our empirical estimates indicate that in the absence of peer effects LEPA adoption would have been about 10 percent lower (1,000-1,600 fewer installations) per year. In addition, we find that growers install LEPA in response to higher energy prices. Cooperatives are increasingly advocated as a means to improve incomes, livelihoods, and sustainability of smallholder farmers. This study analyzes the impact of commercial vegetable cooperative membership on smallholder agricultural performance in Cambodia. Institutional heterogeneities are considered across cooperatives, and various econometric techniques are used to control for potential selection bias. The impacts of horticulture on agricultural outcomes are also analyzed. The results indicate that membership to commercial vegetable cooperatives has so far had no effect on agricultural incomes or the value or amounts of agricultural inputs. However, results indicate that membership has affected technology choice, access to credit services, and information transmission through technological trainings. Additionally, there is evidence that horticulture as a component of overall agricultural diversification can augment farm income. The results suggest that much of the benefit of cooperative membership stems from the cooperative’s provision of services, which might not be easily inferred from measures of member incomes.
  • Sampson, G.S., N.P. Hendricks, M.R. Taylor. 2019. "Land Market Valuation of Groundwater", Resource and Energy Economics, 58, 101120. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.reseneeco.2019.101120
We estimate irrigation premiums and implicit marginal valuations of water in-storage using parcel-level transaction data for land sales in the Kansas portion of the High Plains Aquifer. We find that agricultural land values are 53% higher for irrigated parcels than non-irrigated parcels on average and that the irrigation premium has increased at an average rate of 1.0 percentage points per year over the sample period (1988-2015). Spatial heterogeneity in irrigation premiums is explained by differences in saturated thickness of the aquifer. Water in-storage is capitalized into land prices at average marginal values ranging from $3.42/acre-ft to $15.86/acre-ft. Localized rights such as Territorial Use Rights Fisheries (TURFs) are a widely used class of management tools. However, the effectiveness of different designs of localized rights remains relatively unexplored, especially when one considers strategic interactions both within and across jurisdictions. Using a conceptual model of a network of localized fishing rights, we demonstrate how the interplay between the spatial distribution of rights and biological and strategic spillovers map into outcomes. Specifically, we show how accounting for the endogenous costs to cooperative exploitation within a localized right alters the conclusions derived from traditional models of space-based property rights to natural resources, which assume sole ownership within jurisdictions. Moreover, we demonstrate how strategic interactions between localized rights can cause the costs to cooperative exploitation in any given jurisdiction to increase. These results highlight the complex political-economy dimensions that are important to consider in the design and ex post evaluations of localized property rights in fisheries governance and elsewhere. Spatially mediated peer effects are increasingly recognized as an important driver of technology adoption. In this paper, we isolate the role of peer effects from environmental factors in the acquisition of groundwater rights for agricultural irrigation in Kansas. We find strong evidence of peer effects influencing farmers’ decisions to adopt groundwater irrigation. Using a rich dataset on groundwater rights for the period 1943-2015 and a nearest neighbor peer group definition, we find that one additional neighbor adopting groundwater for irrigation increases groundwater adoption by an average of 0.25 percentage points. We also find that the average marginal effect of one additional peer is reduced by distance and diminishes as the total number of neighbors adopting groundwater increases. Using our model estimates to simulate a counterfactual without peer effects, we find that water rights appropriation stemming from peer effects accounted for about 11 million acre-feet of extraction from the Kansas High Plains Aquifer. This amounts to about three years of typical annual extraction. Our results provide evidence that peer effects can “speed up” resource extraction and can help inform policy makers in designing harvest control rules. There has been a strong push within natural resource management to incorporate spatial structure into management regimes. However, discussions surrounding the appropriate designs of spatial management have largely been conceptual. This paper develops a spatial econometric model of fishing location choice using non-confidential data from the Great Barrier Reef coral trout commercial fishery. Harvest location decisions are modeled as a function of spatial patterns of expected economic returns. The preferred spatially dependent econometric model is shown to outperform ordinary least squares and fixed effects models in out-of-sample forecasting. Estimates from the spatial model reveal spatial spillover effects in fleet harvest location behavior. In particular, harvest activity at any given site is equally sensitive to same-site economic returns and surrounding-site economic returns. The econometric results are illustrated using a fee-based policy simulation. Results suggest non-spatial management is characterized by two inefficiencies. First, heterogeneity between sites is averaged, resulting a fee that is too high or too low across space. Second, fees that are too high or too low affect the fishing effort in nearby locations. Demand for sustainably certified wild-caught fish and crustaceans is increasingly shaping global seafood markets. Retailers such as Walmart in the United States, Sainsbury's in the United Kingdom, and Carrefour in France, and processors such as Canadian based High Liner Foods, have promised to source all fresh, frozen, farmed, and wild seafood from sustainable sources by 2015. Credible arbiters of certifications, such as the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), require detailed environmental and traceability standards. Although these standards have been met in many commercial fisheries throughout the developed world, developing country fisheries (DCFs) represent only 7% of ~220 total MSC-certified fisheries. With the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reporting that developing countries account for ~50% of seafood entering international trade, this presents a fundamental challenge for marketers of sustainable seafood.    Western juniper (Juniperus occidentalis subsp. occidentalis) range expansion into sagebrush steppe ecosystems has affected both native wildlife and economic livelihoods across western North America. The potential listing of the greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) under the U.S. Endangered Species Act has spurred a decade of juniper removal efforts, yet limited research has evaluated program effectiveness. We used a multi-objective spatially explicit model to identify optimal juniper removal sites in Northeastern California across weighted goals for ecological (sage-grouse habitat) and economic (cattle forage production) benefits. We also extended the analysis through alternative case scenarios that tested the effects of coordination among federal agencies, budgetary constraints, and the use of fire as a juniper treatment method. We found that sage-grouse conservation and forage production goals are somewhat complementary, but the extent of complementary benefits strongly depends on spatial factors and management approaches. Certain management actions substantially increase achievable benefits, including agency coordination and the use of prescribed burns to remove juniper. Critically, our results indicate that juniper management strategies designed to increase cattle forage do not necessarily achieve measurable sage-grouse benefits, underscoring the need for program evaluation and monitoring.

Working Papers (* graduate student co-author)
Outreach Publications
Selected Grants and Funded Research
  • Co-PI, “Supporting Rural Livelihoods in the Water-stressed Central High Plains: Microbial Innovations for Climate-resilient Agriculture (MICRA),” with M. Derby (PI), G. Jha (Co-PI), and four other investigators. $1,418,382. National Science Foundation. 2023 - 2027.
  • Co-PI, “Using Vulnerability Analysis to Guide Woody Plant Control Outreach Efforts in Support of Maintaining and Improving NRCS’s Kansas Great Plains Grassland Initiative-identified Core Grasslands in Kansas,” with C. Baldwin (PI), K. Harmoney (Co-PI), A. Ricketts (Co-PI). $843,870. Natural Resource Conservation Service. 2022 - 2025.
  • Co-PI, "Creating Fresh Approaches to Water Use Efficiency for Communities and Wildlife in a Water-Stressed Area of Central Kansas," with H. Mehl (PI), J. Aguilar (Co-PI), C. Baldwin (Co-PI). $514,987. Natural Resource Conservation Service. September 2020 - February 2024.
  • PI, "Assessing Trade-Offs Between Agricultural Intensification and Natural Resources," with D. Presley (Co-PI). $69,852. John and Della Hodler Research Fund. October 2018 - October 2020.
  • Co-PI, "Multidimensional Trade-Off Analysis of Integrated Animal-Horticulture Farming Systems for Improved Smallholder Farmer Adoption Recommendations," with J.L. Vipham (PI), J. DeRouchey (Co-PI), C. Rivard (Co-PI), Z. Stewart (Co-PI). $750,000. UC Davis Horticulture Innovation Lab. February 2017 - July 2019.