rational household labor supply traditionally household behavior is derived from the maximization of a unique utility function in this paper we propose an alternative approach in which the household is modeled as a two member collectivity taking pareto efficient decisions the consequences of this assumption are analyzed in a three good model in which only total consumption and each member s labor supply are observable if the agents are assumed egoistic i e they are only concerned with their own leisure and consumption it is possible to derive falsifiable conditions upon household labor supplies from both a parametric and nonparametric viewpoint if alternatively agents are altruistic restrictions obtain in the nonparametric context useful interpretation stems from the comparison with the characterization of aggregate demand for a private good economy

learning about a new technology pineapple in ghana this paper investigates the role of social learning in the diffusion of a new agri cultural technology in ghana we use unique data on farmers communication patterns to define each individual s information neighborhood conditional on many potentially confounding variables we find evidence that farmers adjust their inputs to align with those of their information neighbors who were surpris ingly successful in previous periods the relationship of these input adjustments to experience further indicates the presence of social learning in addition applying the same method to input choices for another crop of known technol ogy correctly indicates an absence of social learning effects jel d83 013 033 q16

going digital credit effects of land registry computerization in india digitization of land records represents a unique way to test for credit supply effects of improved land administration information over time the authors exploit variation in the timing of the shift from manual to digital operation of andhra pradesh s 387 sub registry offices during the state wide rollout of this intervention from 1999 to 2005 data on credit disbursement and registered mortgages for the 1995 2007 period point to significant though quantitatively modest increases in credit access in urban areas institutional factors allow the authors to explain these results

adaptation to climate change a review through a development economics lens abstract this paper looks at adaptation to climate change from the point of view of poor households since the development literature has firmly established the role of weather risk as a source of income volatility for the poor and climate change is expected to increase this risk we review the range of risk coping mechanisms available to poorer households with a focus on possible barriers to adaptation we ask both how government interventions affect the set of options available for adaptation and risk coping and also what these adaptive responses imply for the prospects of sustainable development support for adaptation can involve efforts to make existing locations livelihoods and forms of production more resilient to climate risk in situ adaptation or reductions in vulnerability through the geographical and sectoral mobility of the poor transformational adaptation our review shows how successful adaptation will need to strike a balance between the two forms of adaptation avoiding locking in unsustainable practices in locations that are already marginal from an economic perspective and taking account of broader socio economic trends already taking place in many developing countries such as population growth and urbanisation we also highlight important considerations for policy makers which to date have been relatively neglected in the literature in particular related to the dynamic interaction between adaptation and sustainable development

land tenure security and investment does strength of land right really matter in rural burkina faso abstract the causal relationship between land tenure security and agricultural investment plays a crucial role in the process of rural development land property rights are key determinants for reducing poverty through agricultural productivity natural resource management and socio economic inequalities growing competition for land access increases the sensitivity in land socio economic stakes and related policies in developing countries this paper analyzes the impacts of land rights on land related investment in rural burkina faso we use rural representative panel data and appropriate methods the two stage conditional maximum likelihood approach is used for dealing with endogeneity while the generalized structural equation model allows us to control for random effects we show that stronger land rights increase land attached investment and land investment has positive and negative effect on stronger and weaker land rights respectively in rural burkina faso our study also finds that women and immigrants have less land rights than men and natives respectively our contribution to related literature includes the use of rigorous process of hierarchy in land rights the close link of the results with land right strength is of great interest for cautious practitioners in land tenure and investment moreover our results imply that a gain of efficiency can be achieved from combining practices in land tenure and investment

crop prices and the demand for titled land evidence from uganda abstract i investigate how agricultural prices affect demand for titled land using panel data on ugandan farmers and a price index that weighs international crop prices by the structure of land use at the sub county level higher prices increase farmers share of titled land i also present evidence of a positive impact of prices on agricultural incomes the effect of prices on land tenure is stronger when farmers have access to roads and markets when they have undertaken investment on the land and when households fear land grabbing

identifying and addressing land governance constraints to support intensification and land market operation evidence from 10 african countries beyond concerns about agricultural productivity growth issues of land governance have attracted global interest as demand for land acquisition by outsiders has increased rapidly but most of the transfers failed to live up to expectations and instead disrupted local livelihoods we use the land governance assessment framework to identify key conceptual issues and identify how land governance in 10 african countries compares to global good practice results point towards weak protection of rights in practice large gaps in female land access and limited outreach and effectiveness of institutions to record rights and adjudicate disputes we note that programs to improve performance along these lines had significant impact in other contexts suggesting that efforts to improve land governance will be warranted and should be closely monitored and evaluated in an effort to identify models suited to african conditions and assess their impact and interaction with other factor markets

does rising landlessness signal success or failure for vietnam s agrarian transition in the wake of reforms to establish a free market in land use rights vietnam is experiencing a pronounced rise in rural landlessness to some observers this is a harmless by product of a more efficient economy while to others it signals the return of the pre socialist class structure with the rural landless at the bottom of the economic ladder the authors theoretical model suggests that removing restrictions on land markets will increase landlessness among the poor but that there will be both gainers and losers with uncertain impacts on aggregate poverty empirically they find that landlessness is less likely for the poor and that the observed rise in landlessness is poverty reducing on balance however there are marked regional differences notably between the north and the south

agricultural household models extensions applications and policy this book presents the basic model of an agricultural household that underlies most of the case studies undertaken so far the model assumes that households are price takers and is therefore recursive the decisions modeled include those affecting production and the demand for inputs and those affecting consumption and the supply of labor comparative results on selected elasticities are presented for a number of economies the empirical significance of the approach is demonstrated in a comparison of models that treat production and consumption decisions separately and those in which the decisionmaking process is recursive the book summarizes the implications of agricultural pricing policy for the welfare of farm households marketed surplus the demand for nonagricultural goods and services the rural labor market budget revenues and foreign exchange earnings in addition it is shown that the basic model can be extended in order to explore the effects of government policy on crop composition nutritional status health saving and investment and to provide a more comprehensive analysis of the effects on budget revenues and foreign exchange earnings methodological topics primarily the data requirements of the basic model and its extensions along with aggregation market interaction uncertainty and market imperfections are discussed the most important methodological issues the question of the recursive property of these models is also discussed

long term consequences of colonial institutions and human capital investments sub national evidence from madagascar summary this study from madagascar exploits local variation in the timing and organization of colonial settlement and missionary education to distinguish long run effects of colonial institutions and human capital results indicate that only colonial institutions had robust impacts on local economic outcomes analysis of transmission mechanisms suggests that these effects are explained by higher quality property rights institutions but not by persistence in economic activities like the production of cash crops there are also indications that migration induced human capital spill overs from missionary areas contributed to superior outcomes in former settler districts

do property rights promote investment but cause deforestation quasi experimental evidence from nicaragua abstract many policymakers argue that property rights decrease deforestation some theoretical papers also make this prediction arguing that property rights decrease discount rates applied to a long term investment in forestry however the effect is theoretically ambiguous the paper takes a novel instrumental variables approach based on nicaragua s agrarian reform to test for the effect using a new dataset nicaragua s 2001 agricultural census it finds that property rights significantly increase deforestation the model supported by the data suggests a likely mechanism for this relationship property rights increase investment increasing agricultural productivity and therefore the returns to deforestation

caught in a productivity trap a distributional perspective on gender differences in malawian agriculture in targeting poverty gains sub saharan african governments have emphasized the alleviation of gender differences in agricultural productivity the empirical studies on the gender gap however have frequently used data that were limited regarding geographic and topical coverage and or details on intra household dynamics the study provides a nationally representative analysis of the gender gap in malawi and decomposes it for the first time at the mean and at selected points of the agricultural productivity distribution into i a portion driven by gender differences in levels of observable attributes the endowment effect and ii a portion driven by gender differences in returns to the same set of observables the structure effect sequentially the authors unpack the relative contributions of different factors towards the gender gap and suggest future research priorities to inform policy interventions the authors find that while female managed plots are on average 25 percent less productive 82 percent of this differential is explained by differences in endowments mainly due to high value crop cultivation and levels of household adult male labor inputs the factors driving the structure effect include child dependency ratio and effectiveness of household adult male labor and inorganic fertilizer the gender gap increases across the productivity distribution ranging from 22 percent at the 10th percentile to 37 percent at the 90th percentile while it is explained predominantly by the endowment effect in the first half of the distribution the contribution of the structure effect towards the gender gap increases steadily above the median standing at 34 percent at the 90th percentile

explaining smallholder maize marketing in southern and eastern africa the roles of market access technology and household resource endowments research on household food grain sales behavior in developing countries has tended to focus on the roles of market access and prices to explain why many rural households do not sell staple crops though recent literature suggests that low household asset endowments may also be key constraints we use econometric analysis of panel data from smallholders in kenya mozambique and zambia to inform the design of public investments that will enable smallholders to increase their maize sales results show that investments that raise farm level productivity and land access are an essential complement to investments that improve market access

can integrated agriculture nutrition programmes change gender norms on land and asset ownership evidence from burkina faso this article uses a mixed methods approach to analyse the impact of an integrated agriculture and nutrition programme in burkina faso on women s and men s assets and norms regarding ownership use and control of assets we use a cluster randomised controlled trial to determine whether productive asset transfers and increased income generating opportunities for women increase women s assets over time qualitative work on gender norms finds that although men still own and control most assets women have greater decision making power and control over home gardens and their produce and attitudes towards women owning property have become more favourable in treatment areas

environmental and gender impacts of land tenure regularization in africa pilot evidence from rwanda although increased global demand for land has led to renewed interest in african land tenure few models to address these issues quickly and at the required scale have been identified or evaluated the case of rwanda s nation wide and relatively low cost land tenure regularization program is thus of great interest this paper evaluates the short term impact some 2 5 years after completion of the pilots undertaken to fine tune the approach using a geographic discontinuity design with spatial fixed effects three key findings emerge from the analysis first the program improved land access for legally married women about 76 percent of married couples and prompted better recordation of inheritance rights without gender bias second the analysis finds a very large impact on investment and maintenance of soil conservation measures this effect was particularly pronounced for female headed households suggesting that this group had suffered from high levels of tenure insecurity which the program managed to reduce third land market activity declined allowing rejection of the hypothesis that the program caused a wave of distress sales or widespread landlessness by vulnerable people implications for program design and policy are discussed

intra household resource allocation and familial ties abstract in this paper we investigate the link between intra household resource allocation and familial ties between household members we show that within the same geographic economic and social environments households where members have stronger familial ties nuclear family households achieve near pareto efficient allocation of productive resources and pareto efficient allocation of consumption while households with weaker familial ties extended family households do not we propose a theoretical model of the household based on the idea that altruism between household members vary with familial ties which generates predictions consistent with the observed empirical patterns

specificity of control the case of mexico s ejido reform abstract an important aspect of property rights is specificity the ability of a third party to enforce rights the empirical literature rarely isolates the effect of specificity because exogenous changes due to land reforms either simultaneously change both control and specificity or exclusively change control we investigate the effect of specificity in the context of the 1992 salinas land reforms in mexico which constitutionally changed individual control rights for all communal landholders but reserved changes to specificity for a subsequent voluntary land certification program we are able to address selection into the program by taking advantage of the peculiarities in the certification process using agricultural production data from before and after the reform we demonstrate that land certification significantly increases agricultural investments but only for investments directly affected by the changes in control we explain the results using a simple model that shows how specificity can better coordinate landholders beliefs about the implementation of changes in control

asymmetric non separation and rural labor markets abstract this paper develops and implements a test that provides insight into the state of rural labor markets the test is based on a theoretical link between a shortage or surplus in the labor market and asymmetric responses to changes in household composition we develop auxiliary tests to distinguish other market imperfections from labor market imperfections and provide evidence that most changes in household composition are exogenous to local labor market conditions we implement the test using data from ethiopia malawi tanzania and uganda the overall pattern is one of excess labor supply in rural areas with heterogeneity across cultivation phases genders and agro ecological zones surplus labor is most evident during low intensity cultivation phases in ethiopia there is suggestive evidence that credit constraints create a de facto labor shortage for poorer households there is also evidence of partial gender segmentation in rural labor markets

spring cleaning rural water impacts valuation and property rights institutions the brief summarizes the spring cleaning rural water impacts valuation and property rights institutions the first two rounds of spring protection occurred in january april 2005 and august november 2005 the author measure health impacts of spring protection an investment that improves source water quality the author also estimate households valuation of spring protection and simulate the welfare impacts of alternatives to the current system of common property rights in water which limits incentives for private investment spring infrastructure investments reduce fecal contamination by 66 percent but household water quality improves less due to recontamination child diarrhea falls by one quarter travel cost based revealed preference estimates of households valuations are much smaller than both stated preference valuations and health planners valuations and are consistent with models in which the demand for health is highly income elastic the author estimate that private property norms would generate little additional investment while imposing large static costs due to above marginal cost pricing private property will function better at higher income levels or underwater scarcity and alternative institutions could yield pareto improvements

the profits of power land rights and agricultural investment in ghana we examine the impact of ambiguous and contested land rights on investment and productivity in agriculture in akwapim ghana we show that individuals who hold powerful positions in a local political hierarchy have more secure tenure rights and that as a consequence they invest more in land fertility and have substantially higher output the intensity of investments on different plots cultivated by a given individual corresponds to that individual s security of tenure over those specific plots and in turn to the individual s position in the political hierarchy relevant to those specific plots

inefficiency of male and female labor supply in agricultural households evidence from uganda this article analyzes the efficiency of the intra household allocation of female and male labor inputs in agricultural production in a collective household model spouses optimal on farm labor supply is such that the marginal rate of technical substitution between male and female labor is equated over different crops using the uganda national household survey 2005 06 we test whether this condition holds by estimating production functions and controlling for endogeneity using a method proposed by gandhi navarro and rivers 2009 we find that women are less productive than men that there is more female labor input on low productivity parcels and that men are relatively more productive on female controlled plots compared with male controlled plots total farm output could be higher and pareto improvements could be possible if male labor was reallocated to female controlled plots and or female labor was reallocated to male controlled plots

investigating the gender gap in agricultural productivity evidence from uganda women comprise 50 percent of the agricultural labor force in sub saharan africa but manage plots that are reportedly on average 20 to 30 percent less productive as a source of income inequality and aggregate productivity loss the country specific magnitude and drivers of this gender gap are of great interest using national data from the uganda national panel survey for 2009 10 and 2010 11 the gap before controlling for endowments was estimated to be 17 5 percent panel data methods were combined with an oaxaca decomposition to investigate the gender differences in resource endowment and return to endowment driving this gap although men have greater access to inputs input use is so low and inverse returns to plot size so strong in uganda that smaller female managed plots have a net endowment advantage of 12 percent revealing a larger unexplained gap of 29 5 percent two fifths of this unexplained gap is attributed to differential returns to the child dependency ratio and one fifth to differential returns to transport access implying that greater child care responsibilities and difficulty accessing input and output markets from areas without transport are the largest drivers of the gap smaller and less robust drivers include differential uptake of cash crops and differential uptake and return to improved seeds and pesticides

a framework for reviewing the trade offs between renewable energy food feed and wood production at a local level high fuel prices and concerns about energy security and anthropogenic climate change are encouraging a transition towards a low carbon economy although energy policy is typically set at a national level tools are needed for people to engage with energy policy at regional and local levels and to guide decisions regarding land use distributed generation and energy supply and demand the aim of this paper is to develop a per capita approach to renewable energy demand and supply within a landscape and to illustrate the key trade offs between renewable energy food animal feed and wood production the chosen case study area 16 000 ha of marston vale england is anticipated to have a population density midway between that for england and the uk the daily per capita demand for energy for heat 31 kwh transport 34 kwh and electricity 15 kwh when combined 80 kwh was seven fold higher than the combined demand for food 2 kwh animal feed 6 kwh and wood 4 kwh using described algorithms the combined potential energy supply from domestic wind and photovoltaic panels solar heating ground source heat and municipal waste was limited 10 kwh p 1 d 1 additional electricity could be generated from landfill gas and commercial wind turbines but these have temporal implications using a geographical information system and the yield safe tree and crop yield model the capacity to supply bioethanol biodiesel and biomass food feed and wood was calculated and illustrated for three land use scenarios these scenarios highlight the limits on meeting energy demands for transport 33 and heat 53 even if all of the arable and grassland area was planted to a high yielding crop like wheat the described framework therefore highlights the major constraints faced in meeting current uk energy demands from land based renewable energy and the stark choices faced by decision makers

the productivity impacts of formal and informal land rights evidence from madagascar this paper studies the relationship between land rights and agricultural productivity whereas previous studies used proxies for soil quality and instrumental variables to control for the endogeneity of land titles the data used here include precise soil quality measurements which in principle allow controlling for the unobserved heterogeneity between plots empirical results suggest that formal land rights i e land titles have no impact on productivity but that informal land rights i e landowners subjective perceptions of what they can and cannot do with their plots have heterogeneous impacts on productivity

do better property rights improve local income evidence from first nations treaties abstract this paper examines the effect of an improvement in property rights on a local economy using the case of first nations modern treaties these treaties are an important institutional reform that clarifies ownership of land and natural resources near aboriginal communities using confidential micro data i find evidence of a positive impact of modern treaties on real income the effect is driven by employment income and spreads across workers in industries not directly affected by the reform i also find an increase in real wages and housing costs the effects are similar in neighboring communities outside indian reserves these results are consistent with property right reforms creating a positive demand shock that affects the whole local economy this is a yet understudied mechanism through which better property rights can generate positive local spillovers

entitled to work urban property rights and labor supply in peru this brief summarizes the results of a gender impact evaluation study entitled entitled to work urban property rights and labor supply in peru new legal rights were issued in 1996 project teams providing titling service through 2003 in peru the study observed that between 1996 and 2003 the peruvian government issued property titles to over 1 2 million urban households the largest titling program targeted at urban squatters in the developing world this paper examines the labor market effects of increases in tenure security resulting from the program pre program squatters in program neighborhoods were significantly more likely to report improved tenure security by 60 percent similarly program participants were 18 8 percentage points less likely to report a high likelihood of eviction or invasion and 18 8 percentage points more likely to report that their dwelling was currently very secure from eviction or invasion the likelihood of working inside the home significantly falls by 11 6 percentage points for the average squatter family with two program periods

land property rights and resource allocation abstractin this paper we review the most significant empirical literature on the causal effects of land property rights the literature indicates that secure property rights boost investment in both rural and urban areas these effects however do not appear to be the result of improved credit conditions in rural areas clear land rights also lead to increases in productivity and farm earnings in contrast for urban areas the evidence for an effect on earnings is mixed we find little empirical evidence to suggest that land titling programs enhance the development of land markets finally some evidence suggests that land titling induces changes in household structure that foster human capital accumulation and may help to increase the incomes of future generations

gender agricultural production and the theory of the household virtually all models of the household assume that the allocation of resources is pareto efficient within many african households agricultural production occurs on many plots controlled by different members of the household pareto efficiency implies that factors should be allocated efficiently across these plots i find in contrast that plots controlled by women are farmed much less intensively than similar plots within the household controlled by men the estimates imply that about 6 percent of output is lost because of inefficient factor allocation within the household the paper suggests a new approach to modeling intrahousehold allocation consistent with the empirical results

expected failures and unexpected successes of land titling in africa abstract the imposition of market oriented economic reforms throughout africa in the 1990s has sparked renewed debate over the desirability of state sponsored land titling programs proponents argue that land titling is an essential foundation for economic growth opponents contend that titling programs are unnecessary and premature at best or detrimental at worst this paper addresses these concerns through an examination of cameroon s 1974 lands ordinance using both quantitative and qualitative data we find that the 1974 lands ordinance has not introduced western style private property rights in cameroon s agrarian sector nevertheless the ordinance is not irrelevant to rural farmers rural farmers have used the ordinance to obtain concrete boundary markers on their land enhancing their tenure security in addition administrators have used the ordinance to register underdeveloped land reducing the contradictions between state law and customary law these findings suggest that policy makers could fruitfully redesign their land tenure policies to render them more attractive to rural farmers and thereby give the state a more constructive role in enhancing tenure security and in promoting economic growth

a theory of misgovernance this paper tries to explain why government bureaucracies are often associated with red tape corruption and lack of incentives the paper identifies two specific ingredients that together can provide an explanation the fact that governments often act precisely in situations where markets fail and the presence of agency problems within the government we show that these problems are exacerbated at low levels of development and in bureaucracies dealing with poor people we also argue that we need to posit the existence of a welfare oriented constituency within the government in order to explain red tape and corruption

property rights for the poor effects of land titling secure property rights are considered a key determinant of economic development the evaluation of the causal effects of property rights however is a difficult task as their allocation is typically endogenous to overcome this identification problem we exploit a natural experiment in the allocation of land titles in 1981 squatters occupied a piece of land in a poor suburban area of buenos aires in 1984 a law was passed expropriating the former owners land to entitle the occupants some original owners accepted the government compensation while others disputed the compensation payment in the slow argentine courts these different decisions by the former owners generated an exogenous allocation of property rights across squatters using data from two surveys performed in 2003 and 2007 we find that entitled families substantially increased housing investment reduced household size and enhanced the education of their children relative to the control group these effects however did not take place through improvements in access to credit our results suggest that land titling can be an important tool for poverty reduction albeit not through the shortcut of credit access but through the slow channel of increased physical and human capital investment which should help to reduce poverty in future generations

the gender gap in agricultural productivity the role of market imperfections abstractthis paper hypothesises that labour and credit market imperfections by discouraging off farm income generating activities and restricting access to inputs respectively affect female farm productivity more deeply than male productivity the paper develops a theoretical model which decomposes the contribution of various market imperfections to the gender productivity gap empirically we show that agricultural labour productivity is on average 44 per cent lower on female headed plots than on those managed by male heads 34 per cent of this gap is explained by differences in labour market access and 29 per cent by differences in credit access

do female instructors reduce gender bias in diffusion of sustainable land management techniques experimental evidence from mozambique agricultural innovation is essential to meet the food requirements of africa s growing population one pathway to increasing yields may be to enhance female farmer productivity in many settings married women cultivate plots separated from those of other family members they face different challenges to productivity such as deficiencies in inputs weak property rights and time constraints it has long been argued that traditionally male dominated extension services may also contribute to a gender bias in adoption of new agricultural techniques if this is true placing women in extension positions may help other women overcome barriers to adoption posed by inequitable access to agricultural extension services or exposure to inapt information to better understand the role of gender in the dissemination of sustainable land management slm techniques this study uses a randomized policy experiment conducted in 200 communities in mozambique we examine the impact of training female messengers of slm techniques on the awareness knowledge and adoption of slm practices by other female farmers communities were randomly selected in 2010 to have a female messenger trained in slm who was encouraged to teach other women the techniques using data from panel surveys collected in the experimental areas we find women s awareness of pit planting farming techniques increased by 9 percentage points in 2012 and adoption of the technology by 5 percentage points in 2013 in communities with female messengers

land tenure security and investment incentives puzzling evidence from burkina faso abstract the commonsense logic associating higher land security and higher incentives to invest has been recently called into question in the case of african agriculture to be meaningful empirical tests have to be carefully designed so as to take account of the possible endogeneity of the land rights variable this is done in this paper by applying suitable econometric methods to the original data collected in burkina faso the results obtained cast doubt on the existence of a systematic influence of land tenure security on investment by reviewing the justifications for scepticism in the recent literature we are able to conclude that the traditional village order where it exists provides the basic land rights required to stimulate small scale investment

social divisions and institutions assessing institutional parameter variation this paper investigates the hypothesis that the association between property rights institutions and income is weaker in countries with high social divisions it argues that social divisions should have a negative effect on perceived institutional inclusiveness which in turn should depress institutional payoffs absent a property rights indicator that captures the perceived inclusiveness of institutions social divisions should then weaken the observed association between property rights institutions and income the empirical results support this hypothesis and highlight the importance of evaluating whether the institutions measure used captures the institutional framework applying to the population at large

introduction to development theory abstractthisarticle introduces the symposium on economic development theory 2007 elsevier inc all rights reserved jel classi cation o11 o12keywords development economics development economics a subject that studies institutions growth inequality and povertyin the developing world is a large lively and exciting area of research the objective of thissymposium is to put together some contributions in economic theory with a distinct focus ondevelopment questions much of early development economics as typi ed in the work of paul rosenstein rodan arthurlewis ragnarnurkse tiborscitovsky allynyoung gunnarmyrdal harveyleibenstein alberthirschman amartyasenandothers wastheoretical thoughnotnecessarilyinthesenseofformalmodel building theseauthorsallfelttheneedtobringnewconceptsintoeconomictheory ideas that would capture the essential features of underdevelopment and provide explanationsof the development process existing economic theory with its focus on competitive markets depersonalized exchange steady technical progress and balanced growth simply did not seemrightwhenmatchedwiththegroundrealitiesofunderdevelopment fragmented imperfect orjustplain missing markets highly personalized transactions in credit insurance or agrarian tenancy ambiguousornonexistentpropertyrights andwidespreadevidenceofpovertytrapsandhistoricallock ins a fair bit of modern economic theory was born in some of these early development writings young s article 40 on increasing returns was perhaps the rst systematic study of noncon vexities in economic growth rosenstein rodan s celebrated paper 32 on post war interven tion in europe provided a conceptual foundation for modern thinking on coordination failures

land tenure differences and investment in land improvement measures theoretical and empirical analyses this article develops a theoretical framework to examine the relationship between land tenure arrangements and households investment in soil improving and conservation measures it then analyzes this relationship with a multivariate probit model based on detailed plot level data from villages in the brong ahafo region of ghana a major hypothesis tested is that investment in productivity enhancing and conservation techniques are influenced by land tenure arrangements the theoretical analysis and empirical results generally reveal that land tenure differences significantly influence farmers decisions to invest in land improving and conservation measures the findings also show that tenure security does affect farm productivity

the value of heterogeneous property rights and the costs of water volatility the system of prior appropriation in the western unites states prioritizes property rights for water based on the establishment of beneficial use creating a hierarchy where rights initiated first are more secure i estimate the demand for security in water rights through their capitalization in agricultural property markets in the yakima river basin a major watershed in washington state all water rights are satisfied in an average year so the relative value of secure property rights is a function of water supply volatility and the costs of droughts are predominantly born by those with weak rights in aggregate security in water rights does not capitalize into property values at the irrigation district level however there is heterogeneity in the premium for secure water rights the lack of a premium for district level water security is robust to a variety of econometric methods to account for correlated district unobservables and the null result produces an economically significant upper bound on the value to water security for the district the ability for farmers to adapt to water supply volatility as well as expectations about water markets and government infrastructure investment are leading explanations for the lack of an aggregate premium these explanations are supported by the pattern of heterogeneity in the water security premium

returns to skills and personnel management u s department of defense scientists and engineers i introduction labor economics research has documented important changes in the structure of wages in the 1980s and 1990s 1 private sector labor market returns to various measures of skills increased dramatically for example the college wage premium and the returns to experience both increased similarly dispersion in residual wages also increased after controlling for education experience and other observables this has been interpreted as an increase in the returns to unobserved skills these trends were widespread in the private sector they have been observed within and between occupations firms establishments and industries within demographic groups and within managerial ranks in contrast borjas 2003 found that though wage dispersion in the public sector increased relative to the private sector until about 1970 it declined thereafter he concluded that as a result high skill workers became less likely to stay in or shift to the public sector similarly katz and krueger 1991 found that returns to skills remained relatively stable during the 1980s in the public sector especially in the federal government they also found that although job queues rose for government blue collar jobs they fell for government white collar jobs this suggests that highly skilled federal employees fell behind the public sector in earnings during this period indeed several studies have expressed concern about the federal government s ability to recruit and retain highly skilled employees see campbell and dix 1990 2 unfortunately they were unable to offer systematic evidence on the quality of skilled federal employees this article examines returns to skills for some of the most highly skilled employees in the federal government civilian scientists and engineers ses employed in u s department of defense dod laboratories using personnel data provided by the dod for 1982 1996 i study the evolution of returns to observed and unobserved skills the quality of this workforce and the relationship of both to the dod s personnel policies similar to katz and krueger s analysis of the 1980s my analysis shows that returns to skills were largely flat among dod scientists and engineers over the entire sample period this may have been caused by the highly rigid and bureaucratic nature of dod and federal pay and personnel policies compared to that of the private sector i then exploit the panel nature of the data to examine whether this affected the dod s ability to attract and retain high quality ses for recruiting i compare characteristics and subsequent job performance of new entrants to those of comparable employees promoted into a similar job for retention i compare characteristics and prior job performance of exiting employees to those of comparable employees staying with the dod changes in these comparisons over time would suggest a trend in the ability of the dod to attract and retain qualified ses surprisingly there is little evidence of a systematic decline in the relative quality of the scientific and engineering workforce within the dod over the period despite the decline in returns to skills relative to the private sector one possible explanation is that during this period the u s defense industry underwent substantial downsizing in both the public and the private sector to the extent that ses had industry specific human capital their private sector opportunities may not have risen much relative to their dod earnings finally i compare personnel outcomes across three different pay plans most sampled employees were paid under the major federal pay plan the general schedule gs but some were paid under two other plans that were intended to introduce greater flexibility in personnel management i find little evidence that the other pay plans provided much more flexibility as trends in returns to skills and relative workforce quality were similar to the gs pay plan

land tenure and investment incentives evidence from west africa abstract the existing literature on the relationship between property rights in land and agricultural investment in africa has given results that are often confusing and contradictory i make two clarifying contributions to this literature first i pull together existing studies and investigate whether the results they find have been affected by research methods or local contexts studies with small sample sizes those that use binary investment measures and those that control for household fixed effects 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 second i test 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

contradictory land use plans and policies in laos tenure security and the threat of exclusion summary contradicting policies and overlapping property arrangements are common in many countries opening doors for diverse interpretations by different actors this requires better knowledge on how competing interests and actors interact and what determines the practical competition outcomes as demand for land intensifies and international actors get increasingly involved in regulating natural resources land use planning in laos provides a case in point as it aims at strengthening tenure security intensifying agriculture and sparing forest areas while other policies simultaneously promote agricultural development and agri business investment that reconfigure land use and land access through national provincial district village and household interviews we examine how different land and forest related policies interact and whether ongoing land use planning processes and land rights formalization increase tenure security we show how government policies supported by international donors and introduced to strengthen tenure rights for the rural population actually reduce villagers legally permitted agricultural areas even if district level land use regulations do not currently exclude local communities from their land land use plans lay the groundwork for potentially excluding villagers from large land areas we find that plural contradictory regulations and policies combined with existing power inequalities result in a filter mechanism that reduces the practical impact of legal instruments and safeguards aimed at strengthening the least powerful actors rights our results add to other authors arguments that political and legal changes are mediated by power relations cultural norms and economic incentives by highlighting that the duel edged rights sword may actually end up paving the way for greater state control over future benefits derived from community areas classified as forest lands this is especially relevant when preparing redd which we show is likely to weaken rather than strengthen tenure security for rural populations

insecure land rights and share tenancy evidence from madagascar most studies of tenurial insecurity focus on its effects on investment this paper studies the hitherto unexplored relationship between tenurial insecurity and land tenancy contracts based on distinct features of formal law and customary rights in madagascar this paper augments the canonical model of sharecropping by making the strength of the landlord s property right increasing in the amount of risk she bears within the contract using data on landlords subjective perceptions in rural madagascar empirical tests support the hypothesis that insecure property rights drive contract choice but offer little support in favor of the canonical risk sharing hypothesis

the impact of institutional and land use change on local incomes in chilean patagonia many developing rural economies depend on natural capital stocks for generating income and wealth however common property natural resources are often over exploited one method of solving over ex

property relations and economic development the other land reform abstract continued concern for development has led to the suggestion that private property rights should be created to stimulate economic development this suggestion derives from an incomplete understanding of the property relations on the public domain lands in the arid tropics and from a confusion of cause and effect between property and economic productivity a model of the private public boundary in land is developed that challenges the view that wealth would increase if land at the extensive margin were privatized the various types of property regimes in land are defined and explained

how does the choice of the gender indicator affect the analysis of gender differences in agricultural productivity evidence from uganda summary we use ols and decomposition techniques to investigate gender differences in agricultural productivity in uganda using nationally representative surveys from years 2009 2012 the analysis applies different gender dummies female head of household female plot holder and female plot manager to investigate how the variable of choice affects the calculation of the gender gap our analysis obtains different results depending on the gender variable of choice the study finds that regardless of the variable of choice the gender gap in agricultural productivity decreases or disappears when factors of production and crop choice are controlled for the conditional gender gap is about 10 and significant when using female plot manager as the gender variable while we find no conditional gender gap when using the other gender variables the use of time fixed effects and decomposition contributes evidence that the typically available gender variables are insufficient for identifying how gender and decision making of different household members play a role in productivity this finding is problematic for targeting effective interventions to increase agricultural productivity and reduce gender inequalities in agriculture finally we find that the older status of female heads holders and manager of plots child dependency ratio and limited access to adult male labor are factors decreasing productivity in female plots in uganda

property rights and productivity the case of joint land titling in vietnam this paper explores the effect of land titling on agricultural productivity in vietnam and the productivity effects of single versus joint titling for husband and wife using a plot fixed effects approach our results show that obtaining a land title is associated with higher yields for both individually and jointly held titles we conclude that there is no tradeoff between joint titling and productivity and so joint titles are potentially an effective way to improve women s bargaining power within the household with no associated efficiency losses

empowerment and efficiency tenancy reform in west bengal the paper analyzes the effect of agricultural tenancy laws offering security of tenure to tenants and regulating the share of output that is paid as rent on farm productivity theoretically the net impact of tenancy reform is shown to be a combination of two effects a bargaining power effect and a security of tenure effect analysis of evidence on how contracts and productivity changed after a tenancy reform program was implemented in the indian state of west bengal in the late 1970s suggests that tenancy reform had a positive effect on agricultural productivity there

women s inheritance rights and bargaining power evidence from kenya abstractthis paper investigates the human capital effects of a legal reform granting kenyan women equal inheritance rights i employ a difference in differences strategy exploiting variation in pr

can minimum wages cause a big push evidence from indonesia big push models suggest that local product demand can create multiple labor market equilibria one featuring high wages formalization and high demand and one with low wages informality and low demand i demonstrate that minimum wages may coordinate development at the high wage equilibrium using data from 1990s indonesia where minimum wages increased in a varied way i develop a difference in spatial differences estimator which weakens the common trend assumption of difference in differences estimation reveals strong trends in support of a big push formal employment increases and informal employment decreases in response to the minimum wage local product demand also increases and this formalization occurs only in the non tradable industrializable industries suggested by the model while employment in tradable and non industrializable industries also conforms to model predictions

chiefs economic development and elite control of civil society in sierra leone we study the effect of constraints on chiefs power on economic outcomes citizens attitudes and social capital a paramount chief in sierra leone must come from a ruling family originally recognized by british colonial authorities in chiefdoms with fewer ruling families chiefs face less political competition and development outcomes are significantly worse today variation in the security of property rights over land is a potential mechanism paradoxically with fewer ruling families the institutions of chiefs authority are more highly respected and measured social capital is higher we argue that these results reflect the capture of civil society organizations by chiefs

are land reforms granting complete property rights politically risky electoral outcomes of mexico s certification program abstract what is the impact on voting behavior of strengthening property rights over agricultural land to answer this question we use the 14 year nationwide rollout of mexico s land certification program procede and match affected communities ejidos before and after the change in property rights with voting outcomes in corresponding electoral sections across six federal election cycles we find that in accordance with the investor class theory granting complete property rights induced a conservative shift toward the pro market party equal to 6 8 percent of its average share of votes over the period this shift was strongest where vested interests created larger expected benefits from market oriented policies as opposed to public transfer policies we also find that beneficiaries failed to reciprocate through votes for the benefactor party we conclude that in the mexican experience engaging in a land reform that strengthened individual property rights over agricultural land was politically advantageous for the right wing party