The social costs of titling land: Evidence from Uganda

Abstract

• Survey data from Uganda shows mixed evidence of social costs to landholders from titling, dependent on model specification. • Interview evidence indicates social costs may take the form of neighbors or family refusing to assist with harvesting crops. • Afrobarometer data indicates a negative relationship between influence of customary leaders and amount of titled land. Why do some African landholders title their land, while others refrain from doing so? Existing explanations for the evolution of property rights focus on the costs of titling and the degree of enforcement by the state. I suggest a complementary explanation, based on the social costs of titling. In much of Africa, titling equates to removing land from customary authority, which governs multiple domains of social and economic life; actions in one domain bring costs in the others. I cast the decision to title as a coordination dilemma among a community of landholders, rather than an individual choice made in isolation. I test this theory using original survey and interview data from Uganda. A series of logit and probit estimates of data on titling are consistent with the social costs theory, dependent on model specification. Interview evidence indicates that social costs have a marginal effect on titling decisions; this is further supported with an examination of empirical implications at the country level across Africa using Afrobarometer data. The results indicate the need for more empirical tests to establish the conditions under which social costs have the greatest impact. This paper adds to our understanding of institutional change over time, as well as the persistence of customary authority in Africa.