could result from such an arrangement (Andolfatto 2002).<sup>4</sup> As long as specialization and the associated scope for efficiency-enhancing land transactions remain limited and land relatively abundant, customary institution’s advantages for risk sharing (Promsopha 2018), as a social safety net (Baland and Francois 2005) or for oldage insurance (Caucutt _et al._ 2013) together with evidence of limited investment disadvantages (Bruce and Migot-Adholla 1994) are often thought to outweigh the cost of establishing formal systems.

Yet, while customary arrangements are well suited to govern intra-community land relations in a context of personal exchange, they are ill-suited to deal with inter-community disputes. The unmediated <mark>coexistence of competing customary and modern jurisdictions itself can, via insecurity over which source of law will prevail, undermine trust, increase contestability and encourage use of extra-judicial measures (Eck 2014).</mark> Increasing land pressure can, by weakening the ties of accountability that bound together tightly knit village communities, further erode customary institutions’ advantages, trigger appropriation of land by chiefs who perceive themselves as landlords rather than custodians for a vital community asset (Berry 2009), corrupt such systems and cause inequality (Guirkinger and Platteau 2014) or conflict (Chimhowu and Woodhouse 2006). Cases for which this has recently been documented include Kenya (Greiner 2017) and Ghana (Boamah 2014). Third, customary systems are often biased against women, an issue that becomes more urgent as tenure insecurity may rise with rising population density. Even without overt discrimination, women’s lack of documented rights makes it difficult to assert rights against competing claims if they are contested (Henrysson and Joireman 2007),<sup>5</sup> creating insecurity that can negatively affect investment and productivity of land use (Dillon and Voena 2018) and women’s bargaining power.

The cost of establishing and maintaining formal tenure systems is another factor. With first-time registration costs of US$30 and US$60 per title in traditional land projects (Brits _et al._ 2002) and up to US$1,000 per title in some cases (Jacoby and Minten 2007), it is easy to argue that costs well above any imaginable benefits undermine the economic rationale for titling. Advances in technology such as aerial photography and earth observation drastically reduced costs of surveying. If used together with participatory ways of demarcation,<sup>6</sup> these can drastically reduce the cost of tenure regularization, as in Rwanda where 11.5 million parcels were demarcated and registered at US$5 to US$6 per parcel (Nkurunziza 2015). Cloud computing and interoperability, e.g., with personal ID or building permit systems, can increase benefits from land rights documentation for public policy. Increased levels of cell phone penetration even in Africa allow notification of co-owners and updating of records in new, sustainable ways. Experiences also highlight the scope for

> 4 With credit-market imperfections, unrestricted transferability may trigger distress sales or myopic transactions with negative social impacts.

> 5 This is in addition to women being more likely to suffer from conflict (Deininger and Castagnini 2006; Joireman 2008), especially inheritance-related ones (Chapoto _et al._ 2011).

> 6 A system that relies on textual records only (documenting neighbors’ names rather than boundary coordinates) implemented in Ethiopia from 2005 achieved a cost of US$ 1 per title for first-time registration (Deininger _et al._ 2008). Its positive impact, including on gender (Melesse and Bulte 2015; Muchomba 2017) suggests that documenting social consent on boundaries is more important than high-precision maps.

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