PhD Defence

Mathilde Fromage will defend her PhD in front of the following jury:

• Franziska Appel (IAMO), referee
• Franck Lecocq (CIRED), referee
• Jean-Sauveur Ay (INRAE), examinator
• Aude Ridier (Institut Agro Rennes-Angers), examinator
• Alban Thomas (INRAE), examinator
• Cathie Laroche-Dupraz (Institut Agro Rennes-Angers), supervisor
• Laurent Piet (INRAE), co-supervisor

Abstract

This thesis examines how climate change might affect farmland markets in a Western context shaped by freehold tenure. First, I demonstrate how it influences the structure and dynamics of these markets by conceptualising the climate change-land market nexus. Two literature reviews conducted within this framework outline research fronts in agricultural economics and identify key modelling needs, respectively. Then, a qualitative survey of French land experts provides empirical evidences of already observed or expected direct and indirect impacts of climate change on the state and use of farmland, and on land markets in metropolitan France, emphasising the role of the spatial dimension and the heterogeneity of agents. Second, I question the extent to which current land prices are already relevant signals of future land profitability changes in an uncertain climate context. During the thesis, I developed two agent-based models (ABM) to explore how the value of farmland is formed, taking into account agents' expectations concerning, on the one hand, urban growth and, on the other hand, climate impacts at both the intensive and extensive land margins. The first model contributes to the ABM literature by combining urban and agricultural markets, and the second model provides an original approach to model the assessment of the land value by agents in uncertain climate conditions. Results show that climate-induced changes in future land profitability are already partially capitalised in current land prices. They also confirm that imperfect information and competition between uses tend to dissociate the use value of agricultural land from its transaction value on the market. This thesis therefore offers a framework to gain insights on land allocation and price formation issues in the context of a changing climate and contributes to identify key questions for the design of public policies.