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Ineconomics,land comprises allnaturally occurring resources as well as geographicland. Examples include particulargeographical locations,mineral deposits, forests, fish stocks, atmospheric quality,geostationary orbits, and portions of theelectromagnetic spectrum. Supply of these resources is fixed.[1]
Land is considered one of the threefactors of production (also sometimes called the three producer goods) along withcapital, andlabor. Natural resources are fundamental to theproduction of allgoods, includingcapital goods.[2] While the particular role of land in the economy was extensively debated inclassical economics it played a minor role in theneoclassical economics dominant in the 20th century.[3] Income derived from ownership or control ofnatural resources is referred to asrent.[2]
Because no man created the land, it does not have a definite original proprietor, owner or user.[4]
No man made the land. It is the original inheritance of the whole species.
Consequently, conflicting claims on geographic locations and mineral deposits have historically led to disputes over their economic rent and contributed to many civil wars and revolutions.
In the context of geographic locations the resulting conflict is regularly understood as theland question (see e.g. United Kingdom,[5] South Africa,[6] Canada[7]).
Land reform programs are designed to redistribute possession and/or use of geographic land.
Georgists hold that this implies a perfectlyinelasticsupply curve (i.e., zero elasticity), suggesting that aland value tax that recovers therent of land for public purposes would not affect theopportunity cost of using land, but would instead only decrease the value of owning it. This view is supported by evidence that although land can come on and off the market, market inventories of land show, if anything, an inverse relationship to price (i.e., negative elasticity).
Land plays a vital role in advanced economies. In the UK, the "non-produced asset of land" accounts for 51% of the country's total net worth,[8] implying that it plays a more critical role in the economy than capital.
Some United Kingdom and commonwealth universities offer courses inland economy, where economics is studied alongside law, business regulation, surveying, and the built and natural environments.[9][10][11] This mode of study at Cambridge dates back to 1917 whenWilliam Cecil Dampier suggested the creation of a school ofrural economy at the university.[12]
As a tangibleasset, land is represented in accounting as afixed asset or acapital asset.
Thesustainableuse of land is the focus of some economic theories.[13]
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