The pioneer's curse: Selection bias and agricultural land degradation

Expansion of agriculture into new regions has often been followed by land degradation. In this article, it is argued that the process of land development involves the selection of pioneer's with optimistic expectations about the robustness and carrying capacity of new land. Hence, there is a systematic bias towards overexploitation and land degradation. The argument is shown to be an extension of the winner's curse analysis in the theory of auctions.Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Maryland