Land Property Rights Research Articles

Factor markets in England before the Black Death

ABSTRACTModern English factor markets originated during the two centuries of active commercialization that preceded the Black Death. An active labour market was established by the late twelfth century. Evolution of a land market followed the legal reforms of the 1170s and 1180s, which created legally secure and defensible property rights in land. These rights stimulated growth of a capital market, since land became a security against which credit could be obtained. Nevertheless, none of these nascent factor markets functioned unconstrained and each became embedded in legal, tenurial, and institutional complexities and rigidities which it took later generations centuries to reform.

Land Tenure and Investment Incentives: Evidence from West Africa

The existing literature on the relationship between property rights in land and adoption of agricultural investments in Africa has given results that are often confusing and contradictory. The present paper makes two clarifying contributions to this literature. First, it pulls together existing studies and investigates whether the results they find have been affected by research methods or local contexts. Studies with small sample sizes and those that control for the endogeneity of land rights are less likely to find a statistically significant link between land tenure and investment. Self-reported tenure security has been a poor predictor of investment outcomes, while transfer rights have had stronger effects in the literature. Second, this paper tests for a relationship between land tenure and agricultural investment in nine data sets from West Africa. While the link between tenure and investment is significant for fallow and tree planting, it is less robust for labor use and other inputs, such as manure or chemical fertilizer.

Transaction Costs in Tenancy Relationship, Fragment Level of Land Property Rights and Agricultural Development

This paper analyzes the determinants of fragment level of land property rights in China's agriculture tenancy relationship in light of three dimensions: market, technology and institution. The transaction costs in tenancy relationships are brought by fragment of land property rights which are due to labor division in tenancy relationship, but these costs can be made up by the gains from labor division and specialization. Thus, the tradeoff between the two forces determines the level of fragment. In order to cope with transaction costs, on the one hand, the economic relationship's ability to support higher transaction costs by market size expansion or agrarian technology progress must be strengthened, and on the other hand, contractual arrangements should be used to reduce these costs directly. However, because transaction costs are always positive in real world and keep on increasing during the evolution of agricultural tenancy history due to the persistent fragment of land property rights, as shown in the paper, the agriculture cannot realize economic progress by reducing transaction costs through contractual (here i.e. institutional) adjustment but can by agrarian technology progress and market expansion which are helpful to afford the increasing transaction costs. The above arguments are mainly drawn from China's agricultural tenancy history and can, to a large extent, be deduced to analyze the sources of economic progress to tell that technology and market seem more fundamental than institution.

Property rights and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

This paper focuses on the impact of property rights insecurity on deforestation in the Brazilian Legal Amazon. Deforestation is considered as a risk management strategy: property rights insecurity reduces the present value of forests and fosters forest conversion into agricultural and pasture lands. Moreover, deforestation is the consequence of strategic interactions between landowners and squatters. Landowners clear the forest preventively in order to assert the productive use of land and to reduce the expropriation risk. Squatters invade land plots, clear the forest and may afterwards gain official recognition with formal property titles. A particular attention is paid to the measure of land property rights insecurity in the Brazilian context. It is assumed that property rights insecurity has a multidimensional character taken into account by the number of homicides related to land conflicts and expropriation procedures. Principal component analysis allows synthesising such information. An econometric model of deforestation is estimated on a panel dataset on the 1988–2000 period and the nine states of the Brazilian Legal Amazon. The hypothesis that insecure land property rights contribute to higher rates of deforestation is not rejected when the simultaneity bias between insecure property rights and deforestation is addressed. This result questions the modality of the Brazilian land reform that considers forested areas as unproductive and thus open for expropriation procedures.

O.611 Aggregometry – a tool to predict the effect of PRP?

Insecure land tenure and property rights are an impediment to infrastructure access and services for households in many developing countries. This paper explores whether alleviating this impediment through a land-titling program in rural Peru is associated with improvements in household water sources, as well as sanitation and electricity services. The economics literature on the links between property rights and investment decisions has amassed; yet due to the necessity of water for life, the high fixed costs associated with water infrastructure construction, and the positive externalities that can result from water provision, it is not obvious how water services might respond to land tenure improvements. Utilizing the phased-in program timing in a quasi-experimental design, we exploit the differences in implementation timing across space in conjunction with the differences in program impact across households that held property titles prior to the project and those that did not. Results from this modified difference-in-differences method indicate that land titling is associated with small in magnitude, but statistically significant increases in water access. Larger gains in sanitation and electricity services are found. We investigate the channels through which this improved access occurs and find evidence of investments in all three services via either government or water utilities. We find evidence of individual household investment only in the case of sanitation. Taken together, these results indicate that land titles are important, but not sufficient to increase access to water and other services.

Functional Distribution, Land Ownership and Industrial Takeoff: The Role of Effective Demand

Abstract In this paper we analyse how the distribution of land property rights affects industrial takeoff and aggregate income through its impact on effective demand. We apply a modified version of the model provided in Murphy et al. (1989, QJE) which allows us to analyse the role of land distribution when it is independent of the distribution of firm ownership. We extend the result of Murphy et al. (1989, QJE) by showing that industrialization and income depend non-monotonically on the distribution of land and by demonstrating that this result is due to the way land distribution affects the distribution of profits among firms. Moreover, we show that there may be a tradeoff between industrialization and income, the latter being associated with a distribution of land which is more equal than that associated with maximum industrialization.

Disentangling intra-kinship property rights in land: a contribution of economic ethnography to land economics in Africa

AbstractThe issue of property rights in land has taken central stage in research in institutional economics regarding developing countries. In the African context, numerous studies have dealt with the individualization and commodification of customary land rights. The issue of intra-family land rights tends however to remain a black box, regarding the content of the bundle of rights and duties, the identification of the right holders and the transfers of rights within the family. Drawing from the insights of institutional economics as well as economic and legal anthropology, this paper presents a conceptual framework to rigorously explore the issue of land rights through an economic ethnography.

Property Rights, Productivity, and Common Property Resources: Insights from Rural Cambodia

Summary This paper uses data from the 2003/04 Cambodia Household Socioeconomic Survey to investigate the effects of property rights to land. Plots held with a paper documenting ownership in rural Cambodia are found to have higher productivity and land values than other plots, while property rights have weak effects on access to credit. The paper also investigates whether the introduction of private property rights leads to decreased availability of common property resources. The data offers only weak support for this hypothesis. The general insight is that policies to strengthen land property rights can have important, positive effects on the rural economy, even in an environment of low state capacity.

The Origins and Influence of Land Property Rights in Vietnam

Vietnam's 1993 Land Law was intended not only to increase the security of farmers’usage rights to their land, but also to facilitate land transfers. Despite potential benefits, the actual issuance of land‐use rights certificates to farmers (as specified by the law) proceeded rather slowly in some regions. This article seeks to identify factors that explain the emergence of this form of property right as well as to measure its effect on agricultural production. The results suggest that the certificate's direct contribution may be rather small in the absence of the appropriate supporting conditions and institutions.

Violent visions of an ownership society: The land administration project in Petén, Guatemala

This article is a case study of phase one of the World Bank's land administration project in Petén, Guatemala. Although the project's stated aims are merely to formalize an existing set of individual landed property rights, this development intervention necessarily changes the property regime, thereby changing underlying relationships that land as property embodies. Impact evaluations conducted by development economists may fail to substantively address displacement and violence that occur as a short-term effect of the project and long-term disparate impacts of the project that may exacerbate existing inequalities. The case of Petén also highlights the possibility for violent enforcement of property boundaries, where conflict surges between the disenfranchised and those who gain power under the new property regime.

Forward to the Past ? Agricultural Restructuring in Bulgaria

Prior to World War II, the majority of Bulgarian farms were very small, fragmented, and produced predominantly for their own consumption. By 1989, however, Bulgarian agriculture was organized in large-scale, mechanized farms, producing for national and international consumption. Many observers expected further radical changes after 1989, with wide-spread distribution of property rights in land, and market liberalization, leading to the emergence of western-style family farms.In this paper, we outline overall changes in patterns of land use, and then use survey data from the World Bank to examine patterns of agricultural land use by rural households. We find a small group of families engaged in limited commercial farming, and a small group which appears to have returned to subsistence agriculture. But the largest share of landholding households carry on the activities developed under socialism : they produce for personal consumption, to supplement some employment income. In conclusion, we consider some factors which might explain the lack of expansion of market production, in the context of unused land and labor.

Social movements and the experience of market-led agrarian reform in Brazil

This article examines the experience of market-led agrarian reform ( mlar ) implementation in Brazil. In doing so, it will also analyse the complexity of the Brazilian agrarian situation, the political struggles around the fight for land and the complexity of political forces involved in the contestation. The article examines the origins, implementation process and outcomes of mlar . The paper also examines the current impasse in resolving the agrarian question in the country especially those related to the strengthening of land property rights at the same time that there are increasing demands for land by social movements, putting into broader context the current political and operational difficulties being encountered by mlar .

Chiefdoms and the emergence of private property in land

A prevailing characteristic of complex, stratified societies is unequal access to critical resources, and in most cases land is the most fundamental of those resources. Gaining an understanding how relations to land are transformed is viewed as integral to revealing the origins of social inequality. Recent scholarship has proposed an evolution of property rights in land from open access to private property, the latter condition having been attributed to nation states. However, some scholars have concluded from their examinations of Early Medieval Irish texts that land within Irish chiefdoms was regarded as a commodity. The analysis carried out in this paper reveals that in Early Medieval Ireland some land could be considered to be private property, but the holding and transfer of land was restricted to chieftains and their dependents, the lands of commoners being held communally. The closest counterpart to this mode of land ownership is the form of feudalism proposed for the Classic and Post-Classic Maya.

Place Remaking under Property Rights Regimes: A Case Study of Niucheshui, Singapore

From the perspective of institutional analysis, this paper evaluates the place-remaking process of Niucheshui in Singapore. It is found that the redevelopment of Niucheshui since the 1960s has been substantively shaped by the property rights regime over land and buildings. As property rights are defined by the state in the forms of statutory land-use planning, compulsory land acquisition, rent control, land leasing, and conservation of historical buildings, the free market for land redevelopment is reined in heavily by the state. The built form of Niucheshui before 1960 was by and large the product of many private individuals' and communities' initiatives. Those players have faded from the scene since the 1960s, and the redevelopment of Niucheshui is the result of interactions between the state and market forces, though public participation is practised in the land-use planning process. In view of the urban land market behaving and performing within a framework defined by institutions, and property rights being one of the most important institutions, we argue that, not warranted by rhetoric public participation, pluralism and diversity in the built environment are protected by a diverse structure of land property rights which should be incorporated into the place-remaking process.

Private Property—Correcting the Half-Truths

Abstract Editor's Note: Since 1922, when Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes opined that a regulation might “go too far” and constitute a taking, land use lawyers, planners, judges, and landowners have matched their heads wondering how far is too fa. The answers have usually not been very satisfactory for anyone, in laqe measure because the field of land use law and property rights is strewn with a great deal of “intellectual and cultural clutter,” says the author of this month's commentary, Eric Fryfogle. Perhaps we've been asking the wrong questions for more than 85 years. This month's provocative commentaty is an excefpt from Fryfogle's forthcoming book, On Private Property: Finding Common Ground on the Ownership of Land. Professor Freyfogle and Professor Harwey Jacobs (authors of numerous books and articles about private properg) will share their thoughts on private property rights during the Bettman Symposium at the APA National Conference in April 2008 in Las Vegas.

O desflorestamento na amazônia brasileira.

O processo de ocupação da Amazônia desencadeou uma série de fatores indutores do desflorestamento, dos quais pode-se citar a expansão da pecuária e fronteira agrícola, a indústria madeireira, os projetos de colonização, a abertura de novas estradas e outras infra-estruturas, o sistema de concessão de direito de posse, o aumento populacional, a especulação por terras, o crescimento econômico regional, entre outros. O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar a influência de diversos fatores socioeconômicos no processo de desflorestamento da floresta amazônica, utilizando-se uma série temporal de 1980 a 1999. As variáveis analisadas foram: o desflorestamento bruto na região Norte, o preço do boi gordo, o efetivo do rebanho bovino, a produção de madeira em tora de floresta nativa, a produção da indústria madeireira, a extensão da malha viária, o Produto Interno Bruto (PIB), o Índice Geral de Preços (IGP), a população da região, o crédito rural, o preço médio da terra, o preço médio da terra para uso agrícola e o preço médio da terra para uso pecuário. Os dados obtidos foram submetidos à análise estatística utilizando-se os métodos de análise de correlação, análise multivariada em componentes principais e análise de regressão simples. Os resultados mostraram que o desflorestamento é influenciado pela produção de madeira em toras, o aumento da população na região Norte, a produção de madeira serrada, a extensão da malha viária e o efetivo do rebanho bovino regional.

Gendered Realities: Exploring Property Ownership and Tenancy Relationships in Urban India

Summary Gender is emerging as a central analytical construct in exploring landed property ownership and tenancy relationships in India. This article explores the nature of land tenure and landed property rights in slums in India from a gender perspective. The author raises key issues that need consideration in developing a gendered vision of urban land rights, tenure, and reform by documenting some of the central findings of her field research conducted in slums in Ahmedabad, India, in collaboration with the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA). In each case, the author also draws out policy recommendations for redressing discrepancies in women’s ownership of urban land and housing.

Reconfiguring Property in Three Dimensions

In this Article, we demonstrate that every property question invariably involves three distinct dimensions: (1) the number of owners, (2) the scope of owner's dominion and (3) asset configuration. Furthermore, we claim that the interplay among the three dimensions shapes the field of property and holds the key to understanding the deep structure of property law. On this view, property law is a balancing act that requires policymakers and private actors to constantly juggle the often-conflicting demands lying along these three dimensions.The three-dimensional account of property we develop in this Article has important descriptive and normative implications. Descriptively, we show that property law accommodates conflicts by using as many as six different strategies to maximize efficiency over the three dimensions. Furthermore, we demonstrate that all property doctrines fall under one of the six strategies we enumerate. Accordingly, the Article offers a coherent and comprehensive descriptive account of the field.Normatively, our three-dimensional approach offers a wide array of new policy responses to property challenges. It suggests that every property challenge may be addressed on any one (or more) of the three dimensions. This opens the door to new proposals for resolving such diverse long standing property challenges as managing property rights in tribal land and conservation properties, optimizing access to coastal land, and regulating environmental liability and intellectual property.

Intertextual relations: The geopolitics of land rights in Thailand

Abstract This paper explores the geopolitics surrounding the “modernization” of the formal property rights regime in land in Thailand (formerly Siam) from the mid 1850s to the late 1930s. The paper argues that this weak, peripheral state, in pursuit of international recognition of territorial and jurisdictional sovereignty, employed a strategy of “counter-spatialization” in order to mitigate or deny claims for control over natural resources and population groups by imperial powers. The intertextual dimensions of this “spatial” mode of resistance are elucidated through a close reading of the ways in which diplomatic negotiations of a series of unequal treaties, beginning with the Anglo-Siamese treaty of 1855, shaped—and were shaped by—the formulation and implementation of regulations governing formal property rights in land in Siam. The political economy of land rights at the large scale (local implementation of land titling) and the medium scale (enactment of national land laws) was nested within a process of geopolitical contestation over land rights at the small scale (international recognition of Siamese territorial sovereignty).

Accounting for single and aggregated forest incomes: Application to public cork oak forests in Jerez (Spain) and Iteimia (Tunisia)

This study presents an applied improvement in the agroforestry accounting system (AAS) approach to two public cork oak forests in the Mediterranean region: Jerez (Spain) and Iteimia (Tunisia). Both forests have similar environments but differ in land property rights, labour markets and countries (developed and developing economy, respectively). The income analysis considers the differences between forest ownership, and household and landowner economic rationalities. In the case of Jerez, the public landowner has a right to exclude others from using the forest resources; community employment and natural resource conservation criteria determine Jerez's management. In the Iteimia case, the public landowner has regulated free-use rights for livestock grazing, firewood and crops so that local households can meet their needs and improve their income. Households operate by maximizing their income from the full employment of their own family workforce. The results show that Jerez's management generates negative commercial capital income for the public landowner, despite receiving significant public subsidies, while it maintains high internal forestry investment that generates additional local employment. Conversely, Iteimia produces positive commercial capital income for the public landowner and high household self-employed labour income per hectare.