Farmland Boom or Bubble?

Given recent trends at farmland auctions, this study re-evaluates the validity of reemerging concerns for bubbles in farmland prices by applying recently developed detection procedures to cropland prices and rents in Illinois and Iowa. In one approach, explosiveness in prices and similarly timed occurrences of explosiveness in rents may simply reflect asset prices appropriately reflecting changing returns (i.e., rents), as opposed to bubbles. In a second approach, evidence of explosive behavior remains for rents but not prices. The findings seem to suggest concerns for bubbles in land prices are largely unwarranted.