Institutional Settings and Effects on Agricultural Land Conversion: A Global and Spatial Analysis of European Regions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

About the paper with the title "Institutional settings and effects on agricultural land conver-sion: A global and spatial analysis of European regions" I have the following comments:

 

Abstract should be clear about motivations, gaps in the literature that justify the research, objectives, methodologies, novelties and main insights. Another question is about the explanation of some concepts presented in the abstract. For example, what are the meanings of the following expressions: "state-led systems", "market-led systems" and "Conformative systems"?

 

The gaps found in the literature, the novelties obtained and the importance of this study must be highlighted in the introduction section also.

 

The original source of the figures must be clear. For example, what is the source of figures 1 and 2? There are potential copyright problems? The same concerns for the other figures.

 

Why the authors opted by the data sources presented in table 1 and not others (Google Earth Engine platform, Farm Accountancy Data Network)? This benchmark should be presented and discussed.

 

I found difficulties to understand how the explanatory variables were selected. More explanations are needed. 

 

The consideration of OLS approaches for the models used, seems not the more adjusted. This was only possible because the authors ignored potential problems of autocorrelation, heteroscedasticity, multicollinearity, endogeneity, adequacy of the model, .... I suggest that the authors first address these potential statistical problems and after found an adjusted approach.

 

I suggest to consider different section for discussion and conclusions. The conclusions section must have policy recommendations, practical implications and future research.

 

 

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

The study analyzed the institutional settings and effects on agricultural land conversion in the Europe. The manuscript is long but the storyline is unclear. I find a lot of difficulties when reading the manuscript.

 

1. From the title and abstract, it is difficult to understand global and spatial analysis of European regions, global and local econometrics models. What do the “global” and “local” mean?

 

2. It is also difficult to understand Conformative systems had a restrictive impact on agricultural land conversion with an estimated elasticity of -6.73. What does elasticity mean? If readers are not reading the entire manuscript, I am sure that they will be confused about the conformative systems.

 

3. In the abstract, it is also difficult to understand “land use have significant impact on agricultural land conversion”. Land conversion should be the changes between land use, why land use should have significant impact on land conversion?

 

4. In the introduction section. “A major shortcoming of the above literature is that there is no explicit analysis on how the legal system, strategic planning and investment decisions influence the agricultural land consumption in the European framework. there is limited literature examining the relationship between planning systems, policy settings and agricultural land use change in Europe”. I am not sure whether it is true for in Europe, but similar studies can be easily found elsewhere. From the following content, it seems that there are existing studies in Europe.

 

5. Section title 2.2.1, “Spatial planning and policy”, are they totally different to each other? I think spatial planning can be regarded as one kind of policy.

 

6. In figure 3, there are three classification systems, I am not sure whether you can combine these typologies indiscriminately as independent variables.

 

7. It is difficult to understand figure 5 and table 3. From these figures and tables, it seems that there are only four types planning system in Europe, but the situation is actually more complicated from figure 3.

 

8. As the authors stated that land use change is affected by multiple drivers, why do they choose to analyze the institutional drivers only?

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

The article is a very interesting one.

There are however some aspects that need to be corrected.

Most of the figures are unclear, hardly readable.

The equations should be not included in plain text but presented clearly as equations and numbered and explained accordingly.

The discussions and conclusions section should be re-organized separately and re-structured accordingly.

Minor revision is recommended since the content is good but it seems carelessly written.

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Reviewer 4 Report

In my opinion, the value of the publication is diminished by basing the divagation on data from 2000-2018. Lines 33 to 237 refer to old data and discourage further reading. I also recommend replacing literature items older than 5 years with current publications. Much better than Figure 2 is Figure 3. EU spatial policy, even from 2018 now has little impact, especially with the changes after 2019 (covid, War in Ukraine, and Europe's energy problems).

I very much miss the juxtaposition of, for example, 2018-2020 - then it would be possible to assess trends, and development directions, and identify areas with development potential. 

From a document editing standpoint, look at:

1. the "%64" notation - if it's ok, please ignore this comment 

2. Figure 7 is unreadable.

Author Response

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Reviewer 5 Report

 

A very interesting manuscript, using a multiplicity of methods to approach a crucial issue which is the conversion of agricultural land. The authors introduce spatial elements in their analysis contributing thus to the relevant literature. Some suggestions for improvement:

The typology of planning systems although interesting not clearly defined and used in a very confusing way.

Institutions and their role not addressed at all

Results and discussion presented in a not very clear way.

Suggestions

Results: A grouping, instead of a long list, of the different  types of variables used in the different approaches would help the reader understand. 

Conclusions: Conclusions could also be found in the results section. I am afraid the authors do not use policy correctly (e.g. the fact that CAP subsidies are linked to the land) in their interpretation of the results.

The final outcome is that the only clear conclusion is that there is spatial variation of the factors influencing agricultural land conversion.  Of course that is not the only conclusion of this paper, but way the paper is structured is not paying a good service to the interesting results and conclusions.

There is lack of reference to existing literature for many of the results/conclusions presented.

Some specific comments 

Correct the numbering of the pages

Lines 280-281 How did the authors classified the systems according in the continuum market – state led. Are there any criteria for that?

Lines 336-337 What is the difference between the planning systems defined as neo-perfomative and the conformative described in lines 291-292 since in the latter case  a consultation process precedes decisions?

Line 341 Is the range -67% to -215%? Is it something else, it is not clear.

Line 390 Why is the term Transparency used when the indicator is about perceptions on corruption.

Lines 414 – 415 Is this statement  corroborated by any references?

Line 422  and elsewhere. What do the authors mean by “regularity quality”

Lines 488-489 What about housing, tourism, holiday/weekend residents? They exert more important pressures in most of the cases than industrial/ commercial uses . See also your statement in lines 625-626

Lines 507-510 Not only. CAP subsidies are linked to the land and very often capitalized. So the hypothesis seems right but for the wrong reasons.

Lines 516-517 It is not very clear. When agricultural subsidies are linked to the area (hectares) as it is the case in the EU, abundance of available land  seems to be a rather irrelevant factor.

Line 631 Food security has ceased to be the only CAP goal long ago. In fact it was never its sole objective.

Lines 662-663 Conversion of agricultural land to urban in order to house the newly emerged labour force.  Are there any corroborative references? What about suburban housing, tourism, second residence ???

Line 665 -666 It is mentioned above that it is insignificant.

Lines 670-672 If Agricultural GVA includes subsidies it is a, unexpected (therefore very interesting) result. Is there any corroboration for that, any explanation?

Lines 707-712, 743-746 Are there any relevant references in the literature?

Lines 864-865 Table 6 This table confuses the reader. If I understood right, there are two dimensions use for the typology

 a. State - Market led

b. Conformative  - performative

If this is the scheme,  where are, the types presented in the table, placed within these two dimensions.

Line 875 plan led ????

Lines 878-881 Could the authors clarify the distinction made here?

Line 884 Not clear about the range

Lines 934-936 I fail to understand how do the authors derive this conclusion from their findings.

 

 

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Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I suggest the authors explain better the potential statistical problems in the ols regressions.

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Reviewer 2 Report

accept

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Reviewer 5 Report

First of all I would like to congratulate the authors the improvements in clarity are quite significants.

Two minor suggestions concerning policy issues for the authors conideration

In line 54 their a reference to  "Least Favoured Area (LFA) Policy" .

Actually there is no such thing as LFA policy. There was since the 1970s a specific support "compensatory allowance" for farmers in certain areas the Less Favoured Areas,   which was part of the structural section (Guidance) of the CAP European Agricultural Guarantee and Guidance Fund (EAGGF - FEOGA) . It is still part of the CAP (Pilar 2) with a different name.

 Lines 954 -962.

Another important finding of the study relates to the CAP subsidies as these promoted agricultural production and potentially limited the conversion of agricultural land to urban uses. This result is in line with the findings of Olper et al. [119] pointing out that CAP subsidies assisted job creation in the agricultural sector across the EU countries in the recent decades. Through income transformation to farmers, CAP subsidies contributed to reduction of rural to urban migration by retaining employment and economic activity in rural areas [119]. This reduction in migration and the promotion of agricultural production through subsidies has potentially reduced the conversion of cultivated land to urban uses.

Considering that CAP subsidies since 2003 are given based on the area used and not the production, (in some cases there are additional payments coupled to the production), these subsidies are "capitalised" increasing thus    directly the price and rent of the land. So this provides a simpler and straightforward explanation.

 

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