Elena G. Irwin

Bio: Elena G. Irwin is an academic researcher from Ohio State University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Land use & Population. The author has an hindex of 31, co-authored 109 publications receiving 7037 citations. Previous affiliations of Elena G. Irwin include University of Maryland, College Park.

The Effects of Open Space on Residential Property Values

Abstract: The marginal values of different open space attributes are tested using a hedonic pricing model with residential sales data from central Maryland. The identification problems that arise due to endogenous land use spillovers and unobserved spatial correlation are addressed using instrumental variables estimation with a randomly drawn subset of the data that omits nearest neighbors. Results show a premium associated with permanently preserved open space relative to developable agricultural and forested lands and support the hypothesis that open space is most valued for providing an absence of development, rather than for providing a particular bundle of open space amenities.

The evolution of urban sprawl: Evidence of spatial heterogeneity and increasing land fragmentation

Abstract: We investigate the dynamics and spatial distribution of land use fragmentation in a rapidly urbanizing region of the United States to test key propositions regarding the evolution of sprawl. Using selected pattern metrics and data from 1973 and 2000 for the state of Maryland, we find significant increases in developed and undeveloped land fragmentation but substantial spatial heterogeneity as well. Estimated fragmentation gradients that describe mean fragmentation as a function of distance from urban centers confirm the hypotheses that fragmentation rises and falls with distance and that the point of maximum fragmentation shifted outward over time. However, rather than outward increases in sprawl balanced by development infill, we find substantial and significant increases in mean fragmentation values along the entire urban–rural gradient. These findings are in contrast to the results of Burchfield et al. [Burchfield M, Overman HG, Puga D, Turner MA (2006) Q J Econ 121:587–633], who conclude that the extent of sprawl remained roughly unchanged in the Unites States between 1976 and 1992. As demonstrated here, both the data and pattern measure used in their study are systematically biased against recording low-density residential development, the very land use that we find is most strongly associated with fragmentation. Other results demonstrate the association between exurban growth and increasing fragmentation and the systematic variation of fragmentation with nonurban factors. In particular, proximity to the Chesapeake Bay is negatively associated with fragmentation, suggesting that an attraction effect associated with this natural amenity has concentrated development.

Interacting agents, spatial externalities and the evolution of residential land use patterns

Abstract: We develop a model of land use conversion that incorporates local spillover effects among spatially distributed agents. The model is used to test the hypothesis that fragmented patterns of development in rural-urban fringe areas could be due to negative externalities that create a 'repelling' effect among residential land parcels. Identification of the hypothesized interaction effect is complicated by unobserved, spatially correlated heterogeneity. Using an identification strategy that bounds the interaction effect from above, we find empirical evidence that is consistent with a theory of negative interactions among recently developed residential subdivisions in exurban Maryland. The result offers an alternative explanation for low density sprawl to that which is frequently posited in the economics literature and one with potentially quite different efficiency implications. Copyright 2002, Oxford University Press.

The Production of Space

Abstract: ‘The Production of Space’, in: Frans Jacobi, Imagine, Space Poetry, Copenhagen, 1996, unpaginated.

Learning About a New Technology: Pineapple in Ghana

Abstract: This paper investigates the role of social learning in the diffusion of a new agri cultural technology in Ghana. We use unique data on farmers' communication patterns to define each individual's information neighborhood. Conditional on many potentially confounding variables, we find evidence that farmers adjust their inputs to align with those of their information neighbors who were surpris ingly successful in previous periods. The relationship of these input adjustments to experience further indicates the presence of social learning. In addition, applying the same method to input choices for another crop, of known technol ogy, correctly indicates an absence of social learning effects. (JEL D83, 013, 033, Q16)

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Abstract: where A represents the magnetic vector potential, is an integral of the hydromagnetic equations. This -integral made it possible to formulate a variational principle for the force-free magnetic fields. The integral expresses the fact that motions cannot transform a given field in an entirely arbitrary different field, if the conductivity of the medium isconsidered infinite. In this paper we shall show that the full set of hydromagnetic equations admit five more integrals, besides the energy integral, if dissipative processes are absent. These integrals, as we shall presently verify, are I2 =fbHvdV, (2)