insurance sell off their land in periods of distress well below its fair market value, thereby entering into a downward spiral of impoverishment. Results from testing this directly with our data as reported in table 9 allow us to convincingly reject this hypothesis for our sample; instead of an increase, we find a statistically significant reduction in land market activity and the size of land area traded due to LTR.

To interpret this finding, two contextual factors are relevant. First, in early 2008, i.e., during pilot implantation, stamp duty, which is the fee to be paid upon registration of a transfer, was changed from 6% of the property value to a flat fee of RwF 20,000 which, for smaller plots, could easily exceed 25% of the land value.<sup>11</sup> Second, at the time of the survey, a formal system to register land transfer was not yet in place and it was unclear to what extent the prohibition on registering transfers of parcels below the legally prescribed minimum size of 1 ha—which would have affected virtually all the transfers in our sample— would be enforced. Thus one possibility for the reduced level of land market activity is that households refrained from land transfers in an attempt to not jeopardize their newly acquired tenure security, especially if sensitization in the course of program implementation had increased their awareness of registration fees. Another possibility is that, since this was a pilot that preceded the national roll-out by approximately 2.5 years, the benefits from registration in land markets were still unclear and beneficiaries preferred holding on to their land in expectation of increased land values as others would realize the benefits from having secure land ownership documentation. This is an area that will be more fully explored in upcoming work on the national roll-out of this program.

# **6. Conclusion and policy implications**

Taken together, our results point towards significant benefits from land tenure regularization in Rwanda. The positive results are even more impressive in light of the fact that the program analyzed here was a pilot that involved considerable learning and that the period elapsed between its completion—in particular the actual award of titles—and our survey had been quite short. Individuals whose parcels had been registered through LTR, in particular female-headed ones, were much more likely to invest in soil conservation measures on their land. Clarification and documentation of rights reduced uncertainty over who would inherit land, with substantial benefits for female children who might otherwise have been discriminated against. This program also provided large additional gender benefits. Legally married women were significantly more likely to have their informal ownership rights documented and secured after registration. But women who were not legally married saw diminished property rights, in accordance with the law. And girls residing in female headed households were less likely to be designated as heirs.

> 11 At the same time, transfers due to inheritance, which had earlier been exempted, were required to pay the same level of fees. In light of the high levels of land market transactions observed in Rwanda, such a fee structure could quickly result in a reversion to informality.

15