This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, March 13, 2015.

I'm Caleb Brown.

It's odd to think about, but the federal government owns a massive share of the land in Western states.

Holly Freightwell at the Property and Environment Research Center is co-author of a new report

detailing land management of states versus the feds entitled

Divided Lands.

We spoke at the International Students for Liberty Conference last month.

We actually have quite a divide.

When you look at the eastern states, very little land is owned by the federal government

and when you look at the western states, over half of the land is owned by the federal government and when you look at the Western states over half of the land is owned by the federal government.

So in in terms of you've done a study that sort of looks at how states versus the

feds manage those lands across several metrics, not a not

value judgments but saying this is how this tends to work out. So what did you find

with respect to those two entities managing

land?

Okay, what we've really tried to do is look at the institutional arrangements that exist there.

What sort of federal land management do we have?

What are the regulations?

What are the laws?

What are the incentives provided there?

And compare that to the state trust lands,

which are very different.

...