Unequal Ownership Research Articles

How differential vulnerability and empowerment dynamics work to determine the agricultural performance of women-operated smallholdings: Evidence from Assam, North-East India

Vulnerability to climatic hazards is a multifaceted phenomenon, dependent crucially on the socio-economic framework and biophysical landscape of the community. Gender factors in as a major sub-group in this context, as skewed power relations, and the distribution of rights, assets, resources, and responsibilities mostly disadvantage women, particularly in agriculture. Using data drawn from a sample of women beneficiaries under the World Bank-funded Assam Agribusiness and Rural Transformation Project (APART), our article examines the direct association and interaction dynamics of differential vulnerabilities and women’s empowerment with technical efficiency, productivity, and profitability in the context of women-operated farms in Northeast India. Our results strongly suggest a direct positive association between women’s empowerment and technical efficiency and/or farm sustainability, a negative association between gender gap and economic sustainability, and negative direct associations between vulnerabilities and economic sustainability. With the plots owned and operated by women found to be more technically efficient than women-operated plots with minimal or unequal ownership rights, the results also highlight the significance of single land titles. Our study provides empirical evidence on Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI)-based metrics and the intersectionality of gender-mediated vulnerability, empowerment, and gender disparities in determining farm sustainability in a development-deprived, disaster-prone, and under-researched climatic hotspot—Northeast India.

Pengaturan Kepemilikan Tanah Berdasarkan Hukum Pertanahan dan Implementasinya

Land has a very important role in the lives of all communities, such as its role as a place to live, plantation businesses, agricultural businesses, mining businesses, and so on. Some of the problems that often occur in Indonesian society are unequal ownership or control of land, land control without permission, problems related to land acquisition for development purposes to which those entitled or authorized. The aim of this research is to in-depth analyze aspects of land law from a legal perspective, using a case study of the Jakarta PTUN decision letter number 145/G/TF/2023/PTUN.JKT as the focus. The main objective is to identify and evaluate the implementation of land regulations in these concrete cases, as well as understand their impact on land law more broadly. This research method uses normative legal analysis methods and case studies. A normative legal analysis approach is used to evaluate the legal framework relevant to land, while the case study refers to the Jakarta PTUN decision letter number 145/g/tf/2023/ptun.jkt as the object of analysis. The data used in this research was obtained through a review of legal documents, such as laws, regulations and related court decisions. The results of the research are based on the analysis of the Jakarta PTUN decision number: 145/g/tf/20023/ptun.jkt, it can be concluded that the panel of judges stated that they rejected the plaintiff's lawsuit, because the plaintiff had misinterpreted the letter as a decision of Tun officials which actually only contained information. of a general nature regarding the blocking application submitted by the plaintiff to the defendant

Refocusing on Gender Roles in Agriculture and their Impact on Household Food Security: An in-depth Analysis of Chosen Wards within Kisarawe District, Tanzania

The research conducted in selected wards of Kisarawe, Tanzania, aimed to examine the interplay between gender dynamics, agricultural endeavors, and household food security. The study objectives encompassed identifying gender-based roles in ensuring food security, evaluating the contribution of agricultural activities to food security, and elucidating the intricate relationship between gender, agricultural practices, and household food security. Employing a descriptive correlational design, data was gathered from a randomly chosen sample of 308 respondents. Data collection involved the use of researcher-designed questionnaires, interviews, and observations. The analysis encompassed descriptive statistics, which included frequency counts and means, as well as Pearson linear correlation coefficients. The research findings underscored a significant relationship between gender roles, agricultural activities, and household food security. Consequently, it was deduced that the primary factors contributing to food insecurity in Kisarawe, Tanzania, encompassed unequal ownership of productive assets, the burden of women's domestic responsibilities, limited decision-making opportunities for women, an absence of labor division, suboptimal technology utilization, limited access to capital, a lack of crop diversification, and inadequate information about modern farming methods. Based on these findings and conclusions, the study suggests several recommendations. These include advocating for equitable resource ownership, promoting gender-balanced decision-making processes, fostering an equitable division of labor, providing access to ample information, encouraging crop diversification, and advancing technological capabilities in the pursuit of enhanced food security in Kisarawe, Tanzania. Keywords: Gender, Agricultural Activities, Household and Food Security

The heavy cost of kumbaya–understanding the survival implications of nascent venture ownership structure

PurposeThis paper brings in relevant entrepreneurial behavior theory to understand the ownership decisions founders make during the nascent stage of new venture creation, and how such decisions impact the viability of the firm.Design/methodology/approachThe authors examine the behavior and decision making of 137 lead founders during the nascent stage of new venture creation. Psychological ownership and environmental uncertainty are measured of lead founders when dividing up firm ownership among the founding team. Using a longitudinal approach, these nascent-stage decisions are then analyzed to understand the impact on the new venture one year later.FindingsCounter to prior research suggesting teams are better off with identical wages and ownership, the authors find such harmony (i.e. “kumbaya”) pursuit to be a detriment to new venture emergence. Specifically, this study finds that nascent ventures are better off with an unequal ownership split among the founding team members. These findings suggest that nascent firms with an unequal split are more likely to move beyond the nascent stage and launch a functional business.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough the results of this study offer a valuable contribution to lead founders and new businesses, the study looked at each startup independent of another and is therefore not able to draw any conclusions related to competitiveness.Practical implicationsLead founders and founding teams frequently divide ownership evenly among the founders. This paper shows that, while convenient, the decision to divide ownership equally can hamper a nascent firm as it moves toward the launch phase of the startup process. These results should motivate founders to think deeply regarding the ownership structure decision and, at the very least, consider the possible negative costs associated with the pursuit of founding team unity.Originality/valueWhile scholars have brought attention to the nascent stage, few have identified and analyzed the decisions that take place during this critical time of the new venture development process. Furthermore, even is less is known of the impact nascent decisions have on startup launch. This study sheds light on these areas.

Vertical and Horizontal Agency Problems in Private Firms: Ownership Structure and Operating Performance

AbstractWe investigate how ownership structure influences operating performance and implied agency costs. Our sample includes over 42,000 U.K. private and public firms. We document several new results of considerable economic significance relating to i) horizontal agency costs arising from unequal ownership within private firms, ii) amplification of agency costs from joint presence within the same firm of horizontal agency problems and vertical agency problems arising from separation of ownership and control, iii) mitigation in agency costs wrought by a second large shareholder, iv) impact of complex ownership structures, and v) agency cost differences between public firms and comparable private firms.

Power imbalance and value creation in joint ventures

Joint ventures (JVs) often do not create expected value due to power imbalance between partners. Despite the fact that JV partners are embedded in relational constraints, prior research has largely relied on economic reasoning by focusing on equity ownership difference between JV partners as the main source of power imbalance. We extend prior research to also consider important relational factors represented by repeated ties between partners and network openness, as well as institutional status difference and network status difference as two additional dimensions of power imbalance. Our findings indicate that ownership power imbalance by itself does not have a significant effect on value creation. However, value creation is facilitated when there is ownership power imbalance between partners with more repeated ties. In contrast, value creation may be hindered when JV partners with unequal ownership are embedded in more open interfirm alliance networks. Furthermore, value creation is facilitated if JV partners that have unequal ownership also have network status power imbalance in the same direction.

The Influence of Entrepreneurial Teams' Ownership Distribution on Recombinatory Novelty

Entrepreneurial teams are critical to the performance of new ventures. While prior research has focused on their composition, recent studies have started a debate on the importance of their internal structure. We contribute to this debate by examining how ownership distribution between entrepreneurial team members influences novelty of the inventive activities within their ventures. Drawing on judgment theory and literature on entrepreneurial teams, we argue that an unequal ownership distribution in teams positively influences novelty creation. Further, we propose that the participation of entrepreneurial team members in inventive activities facilitates novelty creation. Controlling for endogeneity, our analysis of 4,890 inventive projects supports our reasoning and suggests that entrepreneurial teams with an unequal ownership distribution are more likely to pursue higher novelty and that direct involvement of entrepreneurial team members in inventive activities matters. Our findings contribute to the emerging debate on how the design of the internal structure of entrepreneurial teams affects organizational outcomes.

Marx, the Predisposition to Reject Markets and Private Property, and Attractive Alternatives to Capitalism

Ever since capitalism came to be recognized as a new economic system, its principal institutions of private property and markets have had vociferous critics, of whom none was more wide-ranging and influential than Karl Marx. Marx claimed that not only were private property and markets critical to creating an ideological patina of freedom behind which, as in slavery and feudalism, a small class extracted from the mass of producers practically all output above that necessary for bare subsistence, they were also corrupting. Yet, Marx recognized that capitalism, unlike earlier exploitative systems, was radically dynamic, producing unprecedented wealth, while transforming not only all it inherited from the past, but also its own nature so as to eventually empower even the producers, who he believed would abandon these capitalist institutions. This article claims Marx was correct in identifying the core problem of capitalism to be its extreme inequality in the ownership and control of the means of production, but that finding fault with private property and markets has been a mistake that has impeded the generation of an attractive and viable alternative to capitalism. It concludes with an outline of an alternative which would eliminate the core problem of exploitation due to unequal ownership and control of the means of production, while retaining roles for private property and markets. It would entail two components: Guaranteed employment at living wages and democratic worker control of firms.

Evaluating Ecological, Subcultural and Political Approaches to Neighbourhood Change and Neighbourhood Poverty

Various metatheories are applied to explain neighbourhood change and neighbourhood poverty. Ecological approaches view these as a deterministic, evolutionary process of market competition amongst mobile social groups. Subcultural approaches view these as the product of a complex interaction of both endogenous psychological factors and exogenous economic, social and demographic factors. Political approaches view these as a spatial side effect of the unequal ownership of the means and modes of production, and skewed power relations. Statistical analysis indicates that a range of significant factors shared between different metatheoretical approaches explains neighbourhood change or neighbourhood poverty. This supports the trend in a convergence and hybridization of metatheory. The diverse approaches sufficiently explain common changes, but the low explanatory power of the models indicates that idiosyncratic factors are as or more important in explaining individual neighbourhood changes. Neighbourhood poverty is not a significant factor influencing changes in neighbourhoods, although other pecuniary measures are.

Land reform in South Africa: an appraisal

ABSTRACTLand-related issues have taken centre stage in socio-political and economic discourse in post-apartheid South Africa. As in other societies, access to land is vital for social–cultural sustainability, improved livelihoods and economic development; hence, the sensitivity of the land reform projects initiated by successive governments. While the South African state has made strides in correcting the unequal ownership patterns inherited from the previous regime, the skewed pattern of land distribution persists, and conflict over land and poverty prevail. Stakeholders in the land reform project have different perspectives. While some advocate for accelerated ‘return’ of land to the original black owners, there are compelling reasons to question the unproductive utility of land that has already been transferred. This article interrogates government performance in the land restitution and redistribution project, assesses the utility of land re-allocated to new owners, and explores the convergence between land reform and persistent poverty. In so doing, it identifies many flaws in the land reform scheme.

A New Rural Social Contract for the Maghreb? The Political Economy of Access to Water, Land and Rural Development

The social contract, as the basis of the relations between rulers and populations in the Maghreb region, is highly contested especially since 2011. However, the rural dimension of this phenomenon remains yet under researched. Building on related emerging critical studies, this paper coins the term of a ‘rural social contract’ and analyses what it embodies. It highlights how the unequal ownership and use of water and land resources contribute to the marginalization of the large majority of rural populations and to their growing discontent. The article argues that three trends currently contribute to the re-articulation of the social contract in rural areas. Firstly, overexploitation and climate change lead to a severe degradation of water and land resources which challenges the established patterns of use and redistribution of these resources. Secondly, agricultural policies focusing on export production and on large entrepreneurs lead to further marginalization of small farmers. Thirdly, the emergence of new rural actors challenge the established social relationships. On the basis of this analysis, the article frames the major challenges, dynamics and characteristic of a newly emerging rural social contract in the Maghreb.

Ownership level choice and value creation in international joint ventures: The role of investor protection

We examine the choice of ownership level and its impact on the value to the US partner in two-party international joint ventures (IJV). Using a large sample of IJVs, we find that the level of economic development of the foreign country influences the ownership choice of the US partner, but the foreign country's origin of legal system does not. The US partner gains more value when there is a dominant party in the transaction: the dominant partner possibly minimizes agency costs and provides greater stability to the joint venture. Partner, deal, and country characteristics influence the created value. Unequal ownership IJVs with English and French law countries bring more value to the US firm compared to unequal ownership in German law countries, and compared to equal ownership structure. The difference in value gain between majority and minority ownership levels is statistically insignificant across all legal systems, thereby providing additional support to the proposition that the presence of a dominant partner, whether of US or foreign origin, enhances the value of the IJV.

Talents in the Service of Justice: Responding to Unequal Ownership beyond Compliance

Over the past few decades, economic inequalities have continued to grow in most countries and the world is still lacking effective global tax schemes or corresponding structures of global distributive justice. Thus, for the world’s top-owners, simply complying with the existing rules hardly suffices as a virtue of justice. In the current article, G. A. Cohen’s nation-centered account of individual virtues in the service of distributive justice is elaborated further in a broader perspective. First, Cohen’s basic insights into the virtues of the talented rich are reconsidered under the conditions of highly unequal Western democracies in the global age as recently depicted by Thomas Piketty. Second, it is asked with reference to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, if the exceptional generosity of some superrich people can serve as a proper response to the assumed deficit of justice. Third, an ethic of generous compliance is outlined as a possible mediating approach in the discussion of the responsibilities of the talented rich in an age of high economic, health, and capability inequalities as well as public sector austerity.

The Meaning of Capital in the Twenty-First Century

America is on a path towards a level of both wealth and income inequality unparalleled in recorded history. Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century summarizes and conveys the work of Piketty and many co-authors, over many decades, looking at the structure of income and wealth inequality across many nations and centuries. This review essay builds on Piketty’s ambitions as well as his data, in order to put forth a better solution: one that accepts and even embraces the facts of unequal ownership of capital, but changes the social meaning of those facts to avoid the social harms that follow from unfettered private party capitalism. A progressive spending tax does not simply take capital away from the wealthy. It allows the rich to keep and manage their wealth, as they have shown the ability and temperament to do so. But it curtails their ability to spend their capital on themselves and their luxurious wants. The social distinction of holding wealth can continue; the progressive spending tax makes this state of affairs work to the common utility.

Mobile Phones for Mobile People: The Role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) among Livestock Traders and Borana Pastoralists of Southern Ethiopia

Abstract The recent widespread use of mobile communication technologies has sparked considerable interest in their application to social and economic development in low-income countries. In this article we examine the different uses of mobile phones among livestock traders and Borana pastoralists of southern Ethiopia, where increased adoption of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has been recent and shows potential for improvements in local livelihoods and marketing systems. We draw on an ongoing study of pastoralists and livestock traders who, in the past five years, have increased their reliance on mobile phones. They increasingly employ them to access information on grazing, weather and market conditions despite local differences in adoption rates. The article argues that differential rates of ICT adoption among groups of herders and traders relate to unequal access to the technology and infrastructure, as well as differences in local practices of information gathering. We show that the high-level of sharing of mobile technologies between owners and non-owners, however, dampens some of the negative effects of unequal ownership and infrastructure deficiencies. In the conclusion, we address the program and policy implications of the study's findings and point to the need for additional research on mobile phone use among pastoralists.

The Concept of Property in Rawls’s Property-Owning Democracy

Abstract Understanding the relationship of democracy and property ownership is one of the most important tasks for contemporary political philosophy. In his concept of property-owning democracy John Rawls explores the thesis that property in productive means has an indirect effect on the formation of true or false beliefs and that unequal ownership of productive capital leads to distorted and deceived convictions. The basic aspect of Rawls’s conception can be captured by the claim that for securing the fair value of the political liberties a widespread dispersal of property in productive resources is required that minimizes the formation of delusions and therefore improves the conditions of deliberative democracy.

Efficiency and Equity

Worker cooperatives can be at least as efficient as privately owned, hierarchically managed firms. Testimony from workers in a number of worker-occupied companies in Buenos Aires reveals that cooperatives can compete in the short term by producing more for less expenditure on labor and in the long term by efficiently allocating money for the purchase of capital. This evidence challenges the rationale for highly unequal ownership of the means of production and the distribution of wages and opens possibilities for a reorganization of systems of production that achieves greater equity in the distribution of wealth.

Transforming the South African tourism industry: The emerging black-owned bed and breakfast economy

In South Africa the tourism industry has been targeted as one of the key sectoral drivers for economic development and transformation of the country over the next two decades. A special feature of the South African tourism economy, which is a legacy of the apartheid period, is that the overwhelming majority of tourism enterprises and of the tourism economy as a whole is under the ownership of the white minority. With the post-apartheid transition, the national government recognizes that this unequal ownership structure in tourism needs to be addressed through a programme of transformation and consolidated support for the development of black owned tourism enterprises, especially of small tourism enterprises. The objective in this paper is to examine the problems and challenges that face the transformation of South Africa's contemporary tourism economy by investigating the development and constraints upon the country's emergent small black-owned accommodation sector in the form of bed and breakfast establishments.

Inequality and socialism in rural China: A conceptual note

Given the serious failure to conceptualize inequality in relation to the developing mode of production in China and within socialist societies generally, more analytical attention needs to be focused on the sources, nature, significance and implications of equality and inequality at both theoretical and policy-oriented levels. Here a conceptual scheme which distinguishes between socialist inequalities based upon unequal human capabilities, and capitalist inequalities based on unequal ownership of or access to the means of production is applied to an examination of past and present inequalities in rural China, both those between villages and regions and those within collectives. Finally, suggestions are put forward for the reduction of these inequalities.