농지시장 추세 파악을 위한 가격지수 개발

Abstract

The change in farmland price has almost always been focused on not only farmers but policy-decision makers; for farmers to get information before purchasing farmland; for policy-decision makers to use appropriate policy tools to stabilize the market. So far the change in farmland price has been calculated as a form of average change on a year-to-year base. Such calculations have become one of the causes which lead to misunderstanding of the farmland market because the year-to-year average change includes changes in price as well as changes in the number of trades and sizes of traded farmland. This paper is designed to suggest a proper method of building a price index for farmland as a tool to review the price change. We considered the applicability of several types of price indices and concluded that a Laspeyres-type price index is the most reasonable choice. A Laspeyres-type price index, however, has a shortcoming in which a reference year’s weight may affect the whole period of an index. Thus, we also suggest two other weights, a three-year average including a reference year and a share of farmland. All indices show that farmland prices have risen significantly in recent 10 years. We hope that the indices will be developed into one of the government’s formal statistics.