Agricultural Land Economics Retirement and Slippage: Lessons from an Australian Case Study

This paper uses a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model to examine the economic implications of agricultural land retirement from wool production for conservation in Australia. Employing an innovative specific-factors characterization of production to generate short-run and long-run results, we show that the potential welfare gains from land retirement can be significant. However, in several scenarios examined we find that slippage in agricultural production is significant, resulting in reduced welfare. Our slippage results provide insights into the relationship between the potential causes of slippage and describe how a land retirement policy can be designed to minimize this effect. (JEL C68, Q24)