in panel A suggest that members of (co)-owners’ households can make cultivation decisions for 87 percent of parcels, followed by rights to invest (84 percent), to transfer/mortgage (75 percent), to bequeath (73 percent), and to sell (66 percent).<sup>12</sup> The same general pattern is observed for IHS4 data (panel B) that point to a similar share of parcels that can be sold (66%) and a slightly higher one (78%) that can be transferred via bequest.

Second, compared to individually reported information (from the IHPS), data provided by proxyrespondents (IHS4) overestimate the extent of (co)-ownership for men and underestimate it for women. The share of agricultural parcels reported to be (co)-owned by females in the IHPS is 4 percentage points lower than the comparable figure from the IHS4. In contrast, the share of agricultural parcels reported to be (co)-owned by males in the IHPS is 9 percentage points higher than the comparable figure from the IHS4.

Finally, conditional on female (male) (co)-ownership, proxy reporting in the IHS4 seems to overstate the specific rights that can be exercised by female owners while understating the rights that can be exercised by male owners. For agricultural parcels that are (co)-owned by females, the IHS4 data indicate a much lower incidence of bequest rights (60 percent) vis-a-vis the IHPS (69 percent). This pattern is less pronounced for the right to sell. The opposite is true for parcels that are (co)-owned by males. The IHPS average parcel-level incidence of male rights to bequest and sell are 78 percent and 70 percent, respectively. The comparable estimates based on the IHS4 stand at 74 percent and 64 percent, respectively.

# **3.2 Empirical approach**

We use the parcel-level incidence of organic fertilizer application and cultivation of cash crops (tobacco, cotton, sunflower, sugar cane, and pepper) in the current season as proxies for land investment. The first of these, organic manure application, is widely used in the literature to quantify land-attached investment (Fenske 2011), possibly together with fallowing to restore soil fertility (Goldstein and Udry 2008). The reason is that it affects productivity well beyond the current production period (Jacoby _et al._ 2002) but cannot be directly observed and is thus non-contractible (Jacoby and Mansuri 2008).

Although manure use is our preferred indicator, its short-term productivity impact in a setting dominated by subsistence cultivation of maize may be limited. We thus use adoption of cash crops as a second indicator that has been reported as key to moving out of subsistence and increasing household income (Bhaumik _et al._ 2016). Cash crops are also a key contributor to the gender differences in agricultural productivity (Kilic _et al_ ., 2015). Perennials and cash crops that provide benefits in the long term require considerable upfront investment that is unlikely to be undertaken without secure land rights (Place and Otsuka 2001).

> 12 The share of parcels that can be bequeathed is, with 82%, highest in communities in which the dominant inheritance regime is patrilineal, followed by matrilineal (71%) and mixed (69%) inheritance regimes.

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