Improved Property Rights Research Articles

Move out of the land: certification and migration in China

Abstract Motivated by the emphasis on securing property rights as an important tool for the efficient allocation of resources, including land and labour, we use three rounds of China Rural Household Panel Survey data to assess the impact of a land certification programme (LCP) on the labour and land allocation in rural China. We find that the LCP results in increased rural–urban migration, more active land rental markets, as well as higher household income and consumption in rural China. These effects vary with age and are larger for younger individuals and households with heads aged 50 years or younger. Improving property rights could be a central task for the Chinese government to tackle issues related to labour and land misallocation.

Workload, Legal Doctrine, and Judicial Review in An Authoritarian Regime: A Study of Expropriation Judgments in China

This paper contributes one of the first systematic studies on how courts adjudicate expropriation disputes both in the absence of judicial independence and in the face of resource constraints, extends the study of judicial workload into an authoritarian context, and demonstrates the complicated and dynamic interactions between apolitical and political aspects of courts in authoritarian regimes. Our results demonstrate that legal doctrine can check the abuse of government power even in situations where it is least expected. Specifically, we examined how Chinese courts, faced with an explosive increase in workload caused by a legal reform in 2015, adjudicated expropriation disputes between the government and property rights holders. Employing a difference-in-differences method, we found an increased judicial workload to improve property rights holders’ chances of winning their case against the government. We discovered that judges’ use of hard-edged legal doctrine—administrative procedures, in particular—to save time constrained judicial discretion, which is prone to arbitrary political influence in authoritarian regimes.

Moderating effect of institutional quality on the influence of debt on investment in sub-Saharan Africa

The relationship between external debt and economic growth has been extensively studied by researchers and policymakers. However, the link between external debt and domestic investment remains an underexplored area of research. Therefore, this paper investigates the nexus between external debt and domestic investment, using institutional quality as a moderator. The sample consists of 47 sub-Saharan African countries with data spanning from 1996 to 2021. The empirical findings from conventional and robust estimators indicate that external debt negatively and significantly hampers domestic investment, while institutional quality plays a significant moderating role in this relationship. Additionally, the benefits of debt can only be realized by the SSA region when the average quality of institutions is above − 1.174 on the scale of − 2.5 to 2.5. The in-depth analysis offers insights that high-quality institutions (above a certain threshold) can help countries leverage debt for positive outcomes by promoting efficient resource allocation and attracting further investment. Thus, policymakers are advised to uphold debt management strategies and institutional reforms, such as reducing corruption, improving property rights, and strengthening the rule of law, to ensure transparency in debt use and maintain a sustainable debt burden. This will create a more attractive environment for both domestic and foreign investment. The results remain robust to alternative methodologies.

The long-term health and economic consequences of improved property rights

This paper studies the long-term health and economic consequences of China’s Household Responsibility System (HRS) reform—a property reform that assigned collectively owned farmland to individual households with secure tenures and boosted labor productivity among rural populations. Using regional variation in reform timing and pace, I provide evidence that early-life exposure to HRS improved individuals’ later-life health, education, and labor market outcomes. However, exposure to HRS at critical school ages reduced human capital investment in children, making them less likely to receive education and more likely to remain in agriculture.

Blockchain on stool land acquisition: Lessons from Ghana for strengthening land tenure security other than titling

The paper develops a blockchain-enabled framework for stool land acquisition in Ghana that makes it possible for parties with interest in lands to object to their sale if the transaction is being conducted on their blind side. The framework also makes it possible for potential land buyers to authenticate in real-time the ownership status of the land they want to acquire–whether the property is registered with the Lands Commission or has been deregistered from the Commission’s records. The framework is a response to Ghana’s current opaque and weakly coordinated land administration systems flourishing the phenomenon of multiple sale of same lands and other land tenure security problems in the country. Further to providing a blockchain-enabled stool lands acquisition framework that enhances transparency, accountability, and better land records keeping in Ghana, the paper takes issues with the view widely held in international development, government, judicial, and some academic circles that titling or lease registration is the only or primary viable means of securing land rights. Our findings from Ghana show that in addition to creating predatory economies for powerful land sector actors (e.g., chiefs and land administrators) to extort outrageous sums of money from land buyers, the heavy emphasis on land titling or lease registration undermines efforts at strengthening other less cumbersome, less costly and less corruption-laden aspects of land administration to improve property rights in the land sector.

Has China’s New Round of Collective Forestland Tenure Reform Caused an Increase in Rural Labor Transfer?

To investigate the rural labor transfer effects of China’s Collective Forestland Tenure Reform (CFTR), we employ binary probit models by using survey data of 694 households from China’s northern collective forest areas. The results reveal that the improved property rights, including rights for forestland use, disposition and beneficiaries, and refined tenure security under the CFTR generally have caused an increase in rural household labor transfer to the nonfarm sector. Besides, we find that forestry-dominated households’ risk perceptions on forestland reallocation and expropriation have significantly dampened rural labor transfer to the nonfarm sector. These can be explained by the fact that the strengthening of forestland property rights brought about by the CFTR can promote an increase in the forestland transfer rate and improve the forestland relocation efficiency. This, in turn, will lead to the liberation of the rural labor force, increase the non-agricultural employment rate of farmers, and ultimately lead to an increase in the rural labor transfer to the nonfarm sector. Therefore, these findings indicate that to motivate rural labor transfer to the nonfarm sector in the context of the Chinese government’s call for urbanization and other developing countries’ handling of similar circumstances, policymakers should further refine household forestland property rights and better protect forestland tenure security by continuing to improve related forestry policies.

The determinants of export sophistication: Does digitalization matter?

AbstractDue to innovation, productivity surged and the structure of exports shifted towards sophisticated products in recent decades. In this study, I analyse the determinants of export sophistication with a special focus on the effects of digitalization for 61 countries by employing three measures of export sophistication. To my knowledge, this is the first study that investigates the nexus between digitalization and sophistication. It is found that exports get more sophisticated as digitalization promotes. In line with the literature, institutional quality, access to credit, and R&D are concluded to be other drivers of export sophistication. However, the evidence on tertiary enrolment and FDIs is mixed. Finally, the level of democracy seems to have a limited effect on sophistication indicating countries that have an autocratic rule also have a chance to sophisticate their exports. In the light of these findings, governments are advised to improve property rights, rule of law, the ease of doing business, access to credit, tertiary enrolment, and R&D expenditures to sophisticate their export baskets.

Property rights and risk aversion: Evidence from a titling program

Abstract Evidence suggests that major events, like war or natural disasters, affect risk attitudes. This paper shows that similar effects can also be associated with institutional changes, such as improved property rights. Using the case of a large titling program in Peru, we find that the program reduced risk aversion. The effects are sizable, persistent, and seem to be driven by improved security of tenure. These results highlight an understudied channel through which property rights could shape economic outcomes.

Land Registration, Adjustment Experience, and Agricultural Machinery Adoption: Empirical Analysis from Rural China

Land property security and advanced factor inputs play critical roles in agricultural modernization in developing countries. However, there are unclear relationships between land property security and advanced factor inputs. This study aims to clarify these relationships from the perspective of the differentiation of the realization process of land property security. From the perspective of property rights theory and endowment effects, data from 2934 farming households in rural China are used to determine the quantitative impacts of land registration and adjustment experience on the adoption of agricultural machinery. The results are as follows: (i) Land registration does not affect the adoption of agricultural machinery. (ii) Adjustment experience has a negative impact on the adoption of agricultural machinery. (iii) The interaction of land registration and adjustment experience has a positive impact on the adoption of agricultural machinery. This study provides some policy references with which developing countries can achieve agricultural modernization and revitalize the countryside by improving property rights security.

Property rights and deforestation: Evidence from the Terra Legal land reform in the Brazilian Amazon

Abstract This paper estimates the early impacts of Terra Legal, a large property rights reform, on deforestation and farming in the Brazilian Amazon. Twelve and a half million hectares, more than 2.5% of the Brazilian Amazon, have been registered under this program. The establishment of property rights may increase a farmer’s incentive to invest in his land and expand his farm due to a lower risk of expropriation. On the other hand, the enforcement of conservation requirements may be easier when farmers have legal titles to their land. We use county level data from 2007 to 2012 on farm registrations, deforestation, crop choice and bovine management to test the impact of the Terra Legal land reform. While we find no overall impact of the program on deforestation during the period in our sample, we do show that there is substantial heterogeneity in impacts across counties. Counties with the largest area registered do have an increase in the level of area deforested, but they also have a decrease in the rate of deforestation. We investigate the extent to which changes in deforestation are related to the amount of registration that occurs among small, medium and large farms, and find limited support for less deforestation among counties with more area registered by small farms; more area registered by large farms is associated with a higher level of deforestation, but a decreased deforestation rate. Our results suggest that land tenure reform can create incentives to decelerate deforestation. Farm size has a strong impact on the farm management changes generated by improved property rights; coupling land tenure reforms with incentives to intensify production rather than expand could lead to reduced deforestation, particularly among small farms.

Property rights and intellectual property protection, GDP growth and individual well-being in Latin America

A central argument for increased protections of property rights (PR) is the role they play in encouraging economic transactions, investment and economic growth. Likewise, the utilitarian justification of intellectual property laws is that such rights promote creative inventions and innovation, and thus can make a nation better off. A further argument is psychological: it has also been argued (though rarely tested) that enhanced rights contribute to increases in well-being enjoyed by a country’s citizens. Many Latin American countries have made efforts to improve property rights (and their enforcement) in the recent past, with varying success. Using three data sources (the Latinobarometer, the World Bank, and the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitive Index), this investigation considers the relationship between property rights and intellectual property protection, economic growth, and individual well-being. The results, which are heterogeneous with respect to labour force status, suggest that policy makers in Latin America should pursue improvements in property rights if they wish to improve citizen well-being while also promoting economic growth.

Appropriative Conflicts and the Evolution of Property Rights

Weak property rights over ‘own fruits of labor’ can provoke appropriative conflicts. However, the recognition of consequent resource-misallocation and value-destruction can encourage collective action towards improving property rights enforcement. We model two (pre-modern) communities populated by a sequence of myopic generations, initially located in a weak property-rights regime with unequal resources. In every generation, the communities costlessly strengthen, or weaken, inherited property rights by mutual consent, and then allocate inherited resources (whose amounts depend on past production and consumption) towards value creation and capture. The co-evolution of the property rights regime and resource inequality does not guarantee the emergence of perfect property rights enforcement in the long-run, essentially due to perverse incentives of the resource-poorer community. In fact, when initial resource-inequality is significant and /or the level of past productive investment (rather than the level of past consumption) is the dominant driver of a community’s resource-growth, the poorer community drags the richer community into perpetual anarchy. When the communities are on an equilibrium path of devolution to anarchy, a policy intervention that exogenously and permanently imposes perfect property rights on them can lead to higher aggregate resource growth and higher welfare in each community in the long run, but can also cause an initial set of generations in the poorer community to be worse off compared to the laissez faire equilibrium path.

Property Rights, Village Political System, and Forestry Investment: Evidence from China’s Collective Forest Tenure Reform

To investigate the effect of improved property rights and, in particular, village democracy under China’s Collective Forest Tenure Reform (Tenure Reform) on household forestry investments, we estimate both tobit models and the more general Cragg models for farmers’ labor and monetary inputs into forestry, using survey data of 652 households from the southern collective forest region of China. The results reveal that the improved forestland use and disposition rights had a significant effect on household investments in forestry, while the beneficiary right did not. In addition, the results suggest that village democracy had a positive effect on households’ forestry investments. More importantly, we find that village democracy was able to significantly strengthen the investment incentive effect of the improved property rights under the Tenure Reform. These effects may be explained by the fact that village democracy improved households’ perception, cognition, and, subsequently, confidence toward, in particular, the use and disposition rights of the forests entitled to them. Therefore, the findings suggest that to increase the investment incentives of the Tenure Reform further, governments could strengthen the bundle of households’ use and disposition rights, as well as their related policies. Also, our findings indicate that governments could significantly improve the performance of public policies by effectively employing democratic procedures in the process of policy implementation.

Structural reforms and growth in developing countries

This paper investigates the effects of structural reforms on real per capita GDP in the short and long-run by employing Pooled Mean Group approach. I find that during the period 1973–2006, there is a positive long-run relationship between international trade reform, financial (capital account, and domestic finance) reforms and real per capita GDP. My results also indicate that in the short-run, financially more open economies suffer more from international trade and domestic financial reforms. More importantly, the adverse effects of reforms in the short-run can be mitigated by improving property rights and contract enforcement.

Engineering Informal Institutions: Long Run Impacts of Alternative Dispute Resolution on Violence and Property Rights in Liberia

Informal institutions govern property rights and disputes when formal systems are weak. Well-functioning institutions should help people reach and maintain bargains, minimizing violence. Can outside organizations engineer improvements and reduce violent conflicts? Will this improve property rights and investment? We experimentally evaluate a UN and civil society mass education campaign to promote alternative dispute resolution (ADR) practices and norms in rural communities, where violent land disputes are common. Prior work showed a fall in violence and unresolved disputes within one year. We return after three years to test for sustained impacts and channels. Treated communities report large, sustained falls in violent disputes and a slight shift towards nonviolent norms. Treated residents also report larger farms, though overall effects on property rights and investments are mixed. Politically-connected residents report more secure property rights while those with fewer connections feel less secure. Sustained social engineering is feasible but politics shapes distributional outcomes.

The Coevolution of Finance and Property Rights: Evidence from Transition Economies

:The transition from communism to capitalism was necessarily accompanied by a sudden and abrupt increase in the financialization of society. This increase occurred in an environment that, even now, still has little experience with or expertise in financialization. Given that financialization occurred simultaneously with the growth and evolution of other political and economic institutions, the question arises: What was the effect on these other nascent institutions like property rights? This article empirically analyzes the relationship between financialization and property rights in transition countries. Using a unique monthly database of twenty transition countries over a period from 1989 to 2012, this article finds that the influence of financialization depends on which definition of “financialization” is used. In particular, increases in basic financial intermediation improved property rights. However, higher-order “financialization,” proxied here by the size of capital markets and the wages in the financial sector, appeared to have a negative impact on the development of broad-based property rights in transition.

Land use patterns for driving environmental management of tea agricultural croplands

Today, there is no integrated land administration system within cadastre and land registry for land use and management of tea agricultural croplands. So, it is needed to a comprehensive development agenda for enabling land management driven land use policy reforms integrated geo-spatial data with cadastre through parcel-based registration and recording system on tea agricultural croplands. A wide range of uses of spatial data and geo-information in these reforms brings real ability to enable achieving global initiatives on sustainable and interoperable tea agricultural systems. To support sustainable tea agriculture for current and future agricultural trends, an application-oriented modeling for monitoring, mapping and registration system is needed to shape and management of tea agricultural croplands and cropping facilities. Having said this firstly registration and recording of recognized property rights are crucial especially for land certification process. So improved property rights (rights, restrictions and responsibilities (RRR)) on certificated croplands are the basis for the building of management system. This system is coming to the fore also to make sound creating standards at global level in the well-designed and long-term initiative supports for sustainable tea agricultural cropping management. Reflecting this, it is also essential to enable modeling of production to consumption process to draw attention through increasing tea agricultural productivity with recording of tea agricultural outputs. So in this paper it is revealed what the initiatives are for support to spatial design and planning of tea agricultural croplands integrated global tea agricultural development by comparison current tea agricultural system. In order to accomplish a broad range of applications as especially registration, recording and monitoring system the spatio-temporal changes based on Geographical Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) would be chosen. Our results show that it is coming to the fore together with growing concerns in global agricultural world by lack of a comprehensive integration of cadastre and land administration system for management of tea agricultural croplands having uneven geographic distribution. It has been also found evidence of the certification type of current tea agricultural cropland that is required to register with a certificate integrated land registry and cadastre to enable tea agricultural farming facilities on it by tea parties. They are having been led to mapping by using unique certification types, namely as “certificated cropland”. So, for the future work, it is showed that intended to building a National Tea Agricultural System for environmentally-related tea agricultural croplands development practise in all concerned countries.

Economic freedom in the long run: evidence from OECD countries (1850–2007)

This article presents historical indices for the main dimensions of economic freedom and an aggregate index for the developed countries of today, specifically pre‐1994 OECD members. Economic liberty expanded over the last century‐and‐a‐half, reaching more than two‐thirds of its possible maximum. However, its evolution has been far from linear. After a substantial improvement from the mid‐nineteenth century, the First World War brought a major setback. The postwar recovery up to 1929 was followed by a dramatic decline in the 1930s. Significant progress took place during the 1950s but fell short of the pre‐First World War peak. After a period of stagnation, steady expansion since the early 1980s has resulted in the highest levels of economic liberty of the last two centuries. Each of the main dimensions of economic freedom exhibited a distinctive trend and its contribution to the aggregate index varied over time. Overall, improved property rights provided the main contribution to the long‐run advancement of economic liberty.

Ruling elites’ rotation and asset ownership: implications for property rights

We provide a theory and empirical evidence indicating that the rotation of ruling elites in conjunction with elites’ asset ownership could improve property rights protection in non-democracies. The mechanism that upholds property rights is based on elites’ concern about the security of their own asset ownership in the event they lose power. Such incentives provide a solution to the credible commitment problem in maintaining secure property rights when institutional restrictions on expropriation are weak or absent.

Do Improved Property Rights Decrease Violence Against Women in India?

Using a legal change in inheritance law in India, this paper estimates the effect of women's improved access to inheritance on violence committed against them. I use the staggered implementation of the Hindu Succession Act across states to identify the causal impact of the legislative amendments on police-reported violence against women and on self-reported intimate partner violence. I find a decrease in reported violence following the amendments and this effect is not due to changes in reporting behaviour or a generalised decrease in crime. Further, women eligible to inheritance are 17% less likely to be victims of domestic violence. These findings are explained by an improvement in husbands' behaviour and in marriage market negotiations. I find weak evidence of changes in women's decision-making. This suggests that while inheritance legislation improves women's security, this may not necessarily be due to changes in empowerment.