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The growing societal demands for land-based products and services, linked to increasing population, can be satisfied through either clearing new land for agriculture or intensifying production on existing land. Agricultural intensification is promoted as a central strategy to fulfil these demands while reducing the pressure on land. We used cross-country panel data on cropland area and productivity to test three hypotheses on the relationships between agricultural intensification, land use expansion and contraction. The induced intensification hypothesis postulates that restrictions on cropland expansion and increased demand per unit area can induce intensification. The land sparing hypothesis postulates that intensification allows reducing cropland expansion, while the competing rebound-effect hypothesis asserts that intensification, by making agriculture more profitable, can trigger further land use expansion. We …