Land Property Rights Research Articles

Land use and management in Benin Republic: An evaluation of the effectiveness of Land Law 2013-01

Inefficient land use and management is rampant in developing countries. The most patent manifestation of this is the chaotic state of land use practices in cities. It’s also demonstrated that the success of public policies and strategies in land use, urban planning, protection of natural resources, housing, agriculture, industry, transport and tourism, depends largely on the land resource management by the State and the Local Communities. Unfortunately, in the Republic of Benin, the land management is characterized by the lack of land mastership and the growing of land insecurity which did not promote sustained policy of investments and increased the failure of many peoples in Benin population, both in rural and in urban areas at the benefit of a minority. With the increasing competition for it access due to the rapid urbanization occurred in the last two decades, the land issue has become a major concern for the population and for the political and administrative authorities.To regulate the land access all over the country, in the National Assembly in May 2013, the Benin government introduced a Land Law project which was adopted by the National Assembly of Benin on the 14th of August, 2013. The law is a common framework regarding all lands; it integrates land acquisition procedures, expropriation procedures, public utility land management, environment and natural resources preservation, land property rights, conflict management, and the administrative structure for land management. But after four years of the Land Law 2013-01 being implemented, land use in Benin remains a huge challenge for the government. Indigenous settlements can often be found in wetlands and flood-prone areas along the city where communities established many years ago are exposed to urban risks and a degraded living environment in Cotonou, a major city and economic pole of Benin. The situation is worsened by the many conflicts occurring among communities due to unsecured land transactions.This study examines Land Law 2013-01 and its impact on land use and land ownership across Benin Republic. More specifically, it discusses the effectiveness and limitations of the law since its implementation. The structure of this paper is organized into five sections as follows. Section 1 introduces the context and objectives of the study. Section 2 presents a chronological evolution of land policies and the major changes in the land use from the colonial period to the post-colonial period. Section 3 introduces Land Law 2013-01. Section 4 discusses effectiveness and limitations of the law. Section 5 gives conclusions and recommendations. The key shortcomings include: a clear understanding of the multiple land access modes which is a necessary tool for sustainable land development, the legal dualism created by the coexistence of customary laws and the modern registration system, the vulnerability of legal land security and the inadequate land information management system.

Land Ownership, Rent-Seeking, and Rural Gentrification: Reconstructing Villages for Sustainable Urbanization in China

Gentrification is a widespread urban phenomenon across the post-industrial world. However, rural gentrification has been explored insufficiently in the context of China’s unprecedented urbanization. By reviewing the redevelopment processes in Zengcuoan village, Xiamen City, China, this study empirically reveals that the socio-spatial transformation of this village has been mainly led by artists and villagers based on institutional arrangements of land ownership. Rural gentrification, which involves refurbishing houses and public spaces, has played a key role in social life and the engagement between indigenous villagers and artists. As active rent-seekers, indigenous villagers contribute to gentrification in a combined effect with China’s rural land property rights. Contrary to Western findings, villagers in China act as landlords who benefit from rural gentrification, which in turn causes grassroots artists or young people to move out because of the increasing rent or property prices. This paper attempted to enrich the extant understanding of rural Chinese gentrification and broaden the analytics of gentrification studies of the institutional arrangements from a land-ownership perspective. Contributing to the literature on rural gentrification, this study highlights the excessive commercialization of rent-seeking as the trigger of gentrification.

Lockeans versus nationalists on territorial rights

This article examines A. J. Simmons’ Lockean theory of territorial rights and defends the superiority of the rival nationalist theory that he rejects. It begins by arguing that all philosophical accounts of territory need to be supplemented by nonideal theory to address real-world territorial conflicts. Turning to the Lockean theory, it points out that if territorial rights are to emerge from individual property rights in land, such rights must be robust. But on Simmons’ account, individuals only have natural property rights in material things involved in their ongoing purposive activities. Thus, a state founded on such rights would be vulnerable to having neglected parts of its territory expropriated by outsiders. It might also have to downsize in response to population increases elsewhere. Nationalist theories base territorial rights on the collective occupation and transformation of land by groups with shared identities. Three charges against such theories are rebutted: (1) The idea of cohesive national cultures is a myth, in the face of internal cultural diversity. (2) Despite their appeal to history, nationalist theories privilege current possessors of land at the expense of the dispossessed. (3) Such theories cannot solve the problem of ‘trapped minorities’ who don’t share the national identity of the majority.

Transportation and Land Property Rights: Economic Impacts on Agricultural Productivity

This paper empirically investigates the relationship between the effectiveness of land property rights and the impacts of transportation on agricultural output. It is assumed that property rights are a pre-condition for the functioning of land markets. The hypothesis is that if land markets are functional then the impacts of transportation are higher because farmers can respond to improvements in transportation either by making productivity-enhancing investments or by engaging in efficient land transactions. An agricultural production function was estimated where both transportation and property rights were treated as constituents of total factor productivity, using panel data from 76 countries from 2007 to 2013. Ordinary least squares and two-stage least squares regressions revealed that, contrary to our expectations, the impacts of transportation are higher in countries with less effective property rights systems. Three possible explanations are raised. First, it is possible that better property rights are correlated with higher government intervention in agriculture, which negatively impacts productivity. Second, possibly larger benefits from improvements in property rights are to be made in the earlier stages of development. Third, it is possible that high productivity is associated with large farms because of economies of scale. Since they are more likely to be found in land-rich countries, which tend to have less effective property rights, the present paper raises concerns that land transactions triggered by transportation projects may lead to outcomes that are not Pareto-optimal, with possible consequences for social indicators such as rural poverty.

Juridical Review Of Nominee Agreement In Land Of Tenure Property Rights Under The Book Of Civil Law And Agraria

Nominee agreement is an agreement made between someone who by law can not be the subject of rights to certain lands (property rights), in this case that foreigners (WNA) and Indonesian Citizen (citizen), with the intention that the foreigners can master land de facto property rights, but legal-formal (de jure) land property rights are assigned to his Indonesian citizen. The purpose of this paper isto assess the position of the nominee agreement in Indonesia's legal system and the legal consequences arising in terms of the draft Civil Code and the Law on Agrarian. Agreement is an agreement unnamed nominee made based on the principle of freedom of contract and good faith of the parties. However, it should be noted that the law prohibits foreigners make agreements / related statement stock wealth / property (land) for and on behalf of others, sehingga the legal consequences of the agreement is the nominee of the agreement is not legally enforceable because the agreement was made on a false causa.Keywords: Nominee Agreement; Property Rights; Foreigners.

Juridical Review On The Instructions Of Governor Of Yogyakarta No. K/898/I/1975 On Uniformity Policy Of Land To The Granting Of A Non-Native Citizen

The purpose of this study was to: 1) To determine and analyze the implementation of The Instruction of DIY No. K/898/I/1975 which makes it difficult to obtain a non-native citizen property rights of land in Yogyakarta. 2) To determine and analyze the correlation instructions for DIY Regional Head No. K/898/I/1975 with other legal regulations. The data used in this study are primary data, secondary data and data that can support tertiary study, which was then analyzed by descriptive analytical method. Based on the results of data analysis concluded that: 1) The provision granting land rights to a citizen Non-Natives in the province based instructions for DIY Regional Head No. K/898/I/A/1975 are not allowed to own land both farm and nonagricultural land with soil status Rights Owned. If a citizen Non Natives acquire land with the right then obliged to waive that right and land rights apply to the Regional Head of DIY with a given the building right (HGB). 2) The provision granting land rights to a Non-Native citizen in the province based instructions for DIY Regional Head No. K/898/I/1975.Keywords: Judicial Review; Non-Native Citizen; Rights of Land

Zoning and private property rights in land: Static and dynamic boundary delineation

The traditional approaches to zoning, as an area and locational-specific action, treat it as a means of the state to attenuate and/or establish private property rights over land. The old approach regards zoning as necessarily one of attenuating private property rights over land whether it is from an interventionist or libertarian perspective. A more recent approach finds zoning possible by contract and characterizes it as a means by which the state establishes and/or attenuates private property rights over land. Informed by Coasian transaction cost economics, this paper: (a) reiterates the view that zoning, as lot boundary delineation by the state, is the institutional foundation of private property rights over land; (b) explains the relationship between private property rights held by citizens, which are often wrongly treated as necessarily restricted access, and those of the state, which are often mistaken as common because they are called “public,” which, in fact, means open access; (c) discusses the distinction between static and dynamic boundary delineation for three forms of incursion into private land by the public; and (d) uses a case study on history of reclamation in Hong Kong, as a form creative zoning by dynamic boundary delineation from 1844 to 2015 to illustrate the importance of dynamic boundary delineation.

What constrains renewable energy investment in Sub-Saharan Africa? A comparison of Kenya and Ghana

Abstract Policymakers in Sub-Saharan Africa face several choices to increase levels of access to electricity under severe budget constraints. First, they need to prioritise technologies that can supply electricity at a low cost. Second, they need to design and implement appropriate policies to attract private investment. On the first choice, renewable energy is becoming increasingly competitive with fossil fuels. Moreover, it contributes to energy security and environmental sustainability, while providing access to new sources of (sustainable) finance. On the second choice, developing countries typically face a multitude of constraints to attract investment to their energy sector. It can be daunting and expensive to address them all at once. This paper presents a new methodology to support policymakers to better target policies for the promotion of commercial-scale renewable energy investment. The methodology, which we call “Green Investment Diagnostics” draws upon the Growth Diagnostics framework, extensively used in the field of Development Economics to identify the binding constraints to economic growth. It is operationalised with a decision tree analysis that builds cumulative evidence to prioritise some constraints over others, through the review of indicators and validation through expert interviews. We apply this approach to Kenya and Ghana, finding that Ghana’s key constraints to investment in renewable energy are an unreliable off-taker, macroeconomic imbalances, regulatory uncertainty, pressures to keep prices low, as well as insufficient and costly domestic finance. Kenya instead offers generous returns to investment in renewables but faces a low demand, a lack of networking infrastructure and problems of governance and social acceptance, exacerbated by uncertain land property rights and rent-seeking.

Urbanization and land property rights

We analyze the joint dynamics of land property rights and urbanization, a key yet underexplored relation that underpins the process of economic development. Using a dynamic stochastic model of urbanization with endogenous demand for property rights over land use, we demonstrate that the costly provision of those rights may result in both residential informality that can persist over time and suboptimal urbanization whereby cities are too small and insufficiently productive. In developing countries, because land administrations in charge of issuing titles are difficult to reform, achieving the second best may require acceptance of some level of informality in spite of the negative externalities stemming from informal land tenure and informal settlements. This may not be easily implemented as urban elites may favor overall welfare-reducing policies that over-evict informal dwellers.

A Bird’s Eye View of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge Occupation: Nonhuman Agency and Entangled Species

ABSTRACTIn January 2016, armed militants occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, demanding an end to government control of the Refuge and other similarly protected public lands. Public discourse about the occupation highlights ongoing tensions around land use, property rights, and government overreach. The discourse foregrounds human animal concerns and all but erases nonhuman animal agency. This essay considers nonhuman animal agency and the entanglement of humans, nonhumans, and the land as seen in the occupation and surrounding discourse. We draw from critical animal studies and feminist posthuman theory to examine how discourses of the occupation produce and reinforce a sense of human exceptionalism that elides a more useful and nuanced understanding of human–nonhuman–land relatedness and agency. The analysis shows how, in the case of the Malheur occupation, occupiers and critics alike rely on discourses of “othering” towards both nonhuman animals and other humans. We take a “birding” perspective on the occupation to show how the webs of relationality that connect humans, nonhumans, and the land might be activated as an antidote to destructive discourses of human exceptionalism.

Rosa Congost, Jorge Gelman, Rui Santos (Edits.) Property Rights in Land: Issues in Social, Economic and Global History. Número 48 de Perspectives in economic and social history. London and New York: Routledge, 2017.

Rosa Congost, Jorge Gelman, Rui Santos (Edits.) Property Rights in Land: Issues in Social, Economic and Global History. Número 48 de Perspectives in economic and social history. London and New York: Routledge, 2017.

Land Property Rights, Agricultural Intensification, and Deforestation in Indonesia

The expansion of agricultural land remains one of the main drivers of deforestation in tropical regions. Stronger land property rights could possibly enable farmers to increase input intensity and productivity on the already cultivated land, thus reducing incentives to expand their farms by deforesting additional land. This hypothesis is tested with data from a panel survey of farm households in Sumatra. The survey data are combined with satellite imageries to account for spatial patterns, such as historical forest locations. Results show that plots for which farmers hold formal land titles are cultivated more intensively and are more productive than untitled plots. However, due to land policy restrictions, farmers located at the historic forest margins often do not hold formal titles. Without land titles, these farmers are less able to intensify and more likely to expand into the surrounding forest land to increase agricultural output. Indeed, forest closeness and past deforestation activities by households are found to be positively associated with current farm size. In addition to improving farmer's access to land titles for non-forest land, better recognition of customary land rights and more effective protection of forest land without recognized claims could be useful policy responses.

PENGARUH KEPEMIMPINAN DAN KEMAMPUAN SDM TERHADAP EFEKTIVITAS PELAYANAN PENSERTIFIKATAN HAK ATAS TANAH PADA KANTOR PERTANAHAN KOTA TANGERANG

The purpose of the research is to examine the influence of the leadership and HR ability to the service effectiveness of the land property rights at Agrarian Office of Tangerang City. The result of the research indicate that the leadership and HR ability are together have significant effect toward service effectiveness. The result also indicates that the leadership have more dominant and significant effect than HR ability towards the service effectiveness of the land property rights at Agrarian Office of Tangerang City. Keywords: the leadership, HR ability, service effectiveness

The Dynamics of Enduring Property Relationships in Land

AbstractThis article proposes a new way of looking at property relationships that will enrich our understanding of how they operate. It focuses on property rights in land which are consensual in origin, although this approach could usefully be applied both to non‐consensual property relationships and to other property types. Recognising both the temporal and spatial dimensions of land, the dynamics approach reflects the fact that most property relationships are lived relationships, affected by changing patterns and understandings of spatial use, relationship needs, economic realities, opportunities, technical innovations, and so on. Although evolving responsively to accommodate changing uses and new rights‐holders, these relationships are nevertheless sustained and enduring. The dynamics lens acknowledges the diverse range of legal, regulatory, social and commercial norms that shape property relations. Our approach also explores how far the enduring, yet dynamic, nature of property relations is taken into account by a range of decision‐makers.

From Urban–Rural Division to Urban–Rural Integration: A Systematic Cost Explanation and Chengdu's Experience

AbstractThere is a considerable urban–rural divide in economic wellbeing in China. Since it was established as an urban–rural reform zone in 2007, Chengdu has seen significant reduction in the disparity in its urban and rural household incomes. From 2007 to 2010, Chengdu adopted urban–rural coordination policy by defining rural land property rights and establishing a rural land market. After 2010, Chengdu adopted an urban–rural integration strategy and allowed villager and business enterprises to participate in land consolidation. The transition from urban–rural division to urban–rural integration involves reducing systematic costs. The degree of urban–rural integration depends on the extent of the reduction in systematic costs.

Property and Land

Recent Latin American constitutions tend to share two peculiar features: they recognize and protect the collective and inalienable land ownership of ethnic groups to their ancestral lands; they also declare the State’s duty to ensure access to land property to the landless through the allocation of public lands and the expropriation of private ones. Offering a historical account of land property rights in Latin America, I argue that, with the exception of current constitutions, collective and public land rights have tended to be recognized and protected mainly under non-liberal legal systems that foresee plural modalities of property. Under liberal legal systems, in contrast, collective property has been prohibited de jure and often persecuted de facto, seen as an impediment to economic development and private investment. I finally analyze current constitutions as engendering an odd combination of plural modalities of property rights and the promotion of neoliberalism and natural resources exploitation.

Gender inequities in operational holdings: the case of Tamil Nadu, India

Asymmetrical distribution of land is an appalling feature of Indian agricultural system which is largely due to inherent socio-economic disparities. Land holdings and property rights governed by law of inheritance discriminates women and thereby curtails their economic independence. Research reveals that landlessness is more in Tamil Nadu than country as a whole and in this set-up; the paper makes an attempt to study gender differences in the distribution of land holdings by major size groups in the state in comparison with all India level. The study has utilized the Agriculture Census (2010-11) report to understand the anomalies in gender wise operational holdings for all social groups and SC/STs exclusively. The results for operational holdings and area operated carried out between different size groups show that there exist poor gender equality. However, the state is comparatively more equitable than the nation. The study also examines distribution of average size per holding by major size groups and gender. Effective implementation of the already existing policies on property entitlement and creating awareness among the stakeholders will go a long way in bridging the gender gap in land holdings.

Land values, property rights, and home ownership: Implications for property taxation in Peru

This paper evaluates the effect of property rights on property values in Peru. Previous research on squatting has shed light on how the provision of formal land titles affects a number of socioeconomic outcomes and a subset of this research has provided estimates on how the provision of formal titles affects property values. However, the phenomenon of squatting encompasses a variety of informal property rights distinct from the possession of a legal title. Using an exceptionally rich household data set including geo-location at the community level we study the effects of both formal and informal property rights on property values. Having a title increases property values by almost 7 percent and squatting on the land by invasion reduces values by about 6 percent. Using these estimates, we determine the potential losses of property tax revenue and are able to study the issue of squatting in the context of public finance.

China’s new rural “separating three property rights” land reform results in grassland degradation: Evidence from Inner Mongolia

China is currently implementing the “separating three property rights” (STPR) reform to consolidate rural land. This reform divides rural land property rights into three components: nontradable ownership, nontradable contractual rights and tradable land use rights. The STPR reform adopts the rental of grassland use rights, a market-oriented approach, as the main arrangement for grassland consolidation. However, this arrangement may undermine the cornerstones of grassland restoration, which are the security of grassland property and payments for ecosystem services (PES) policies. As an alternative to the market-oriented approach, cooperatives are also encouraged to consolidate grassland use rights. We used a natural experiment approach to systematically examine how two different land consolidation arrangements affected key grassland ecosystem services in Inner Mongolia. In rented grasslands, all ecosystem services except provisioning services degenerated severely. Traded grassland use rights were perceived as insecure, which led to predatory land use by tenants. In contrast, cooperative-managed grasslands showed no serious degradation in ecosystem services. However, these cooperatives limited their group size by chief kinship to avoid the free-rider problem; thus, they are unlikely to become a primary channel of grassland consolidation. Because PES policy subsidies are still allocated to grassland contractors rather than to tenants, these policies are irrelevant to the conservation of rented grasslands. Based on our analysis, we suggest several ways to improve this new rural land property reform to avoid a major wave of grassland degradation in China.

Utilization benefit of cultivated land and land institution reforms: Economy, society and ecology

Food security is a condition related to the supply of food, and individuals' access to it. Africa is a region with the highest hunger prevalence in the world and the number of hungry people is increasing. One of the most important reasons is that the utilization benefit of cultivated land (UBCL) in Africa always lags behind other regions of the world. Based on the definition of UBCL and associated with land decentralization, land property rights and land marketization reforms, we develop a theoretical framework for this study, in which the total UBCL is divided into economic, social and ecological UBCL. An index system is then built to evaluate the different kinds of UBCL and examine the relationship between these and land institution reforms. We find that (1) failed land property rights reforms can lead to low ecological UBCL; (2) unsuccessful land marketization reforms can lead to low economic UBCL; (3) paternalistic land institutionalization has advantages but it is not sustainable for raising the UBCL in the long run; (4) an unstable political environment can hinder land institution reforms and lead to low social UBCL; and (5) successful land institution reforms have a great potential for raising the total UBCL. According to the analysis, we conclude that the farmers' enthusiasm can be motivated by land institution reforms, while further improving food production and enhancing the UBCL.