Tenure Security and Soil Conservation in an Overlapping Generation Rural Economy

Abstract

Tenure security and subsistence needs influence the choice between unexploited topsoil and unspent money (i.e., savings) as the mode of transfer. Using a unique household-level dataset from Bangladesh, which contains data on cropping-intensity and savings spent on education, we detect that rural agricultural households with secured tenure have lower cropping-intensity and higher educational expenditure. Furthermore, tenure security and poverty have opposite, but not offsetting, effects. Households prefer higher educational expenditure to lower cropping-intensity as the mode of transfer. Thus, increased public expenditure may lower the pressure on land and soil resources, by lowering private educational expenditure.