Abstract: | Landowners can choose either to sell or to hold their land in areas with active rural land markets. Sellers and nonsellers are both important because their decisions shape patterns of land use. Analysis of mail survey data from 286 landowners in the Rochester, MN SMSA isolates four characteristics that distinguish sellers from nonsellers: occupation, size of landholding, recent acquisition of land, and interest in selling land. Nonsellers are often farmers with a large landholding and no interest in selling. More information is needed about their non-economic motives for holding land. |