second measure ranks countries‘ regulatory quality, rule of law, control of corruption, political stability, absence of violence, and voice and accountability in descending order in terms of percentiles of the distribution based on the World Governance Indicators (Kaufmann _et al._ 2004). Low values characterize countries with poor governance. Finally, for land governance, we use a newly developed cross-country database assembled by the French Development Agency.

Key variables of the land governance indicator include tenure security and recognition of existing land rights (even if not formalized), the existence of a land policy, and levels of land-related conflict. We use the first component from a principal component analysis of these variables as an indicator of overall tenure security. Low values describe countries with high levels of tenure insecurity. Whether good (land) governance increases a country‘s attractiveness for land-related investment is difficult to anticipate the direction of the effect as there are two countervailing forces. On the one hand, given the long time horizon of any agricultural investment, security of property rights is likely to be a key determinant of long-term investment decisions as investors will not tie up large amounts of resources in a country where weak or unclear rights create a danger of opportunistic government behavior and creeping expropriation (Schnitzer 1999) once investments are sunk. The opposite could, however, also be true, i.e. large investors may find it easier to establish and defend property rights if (land) governance and the state‘s enforcement capacity and presence are weak. Some investors unfamiliar with customary tenure systems may indeed believe that it will be easier and more ̳secure‘ to acquire land directly from governments rather than by engaging in a dialogue with local rural populations. Others are quite outspoken about the perceived need and desire to enforce property rights through private militias--despite the problematic historical precedents.<sup>15</sup>

# **3. Data, econometric approach, and descriptive statistics**

Country as well as cross-country level data on large scale land acquisition suggests that the phenomenon has reached large proportions. Press reports provide a consistent source of information that can be drawn upon to analyze the drivers of the phenomenon. We argue that a Poisson model is the most appropriate structure to econometrically explore the determinants of investment demand as well as of projects with actual production, and discuss descriptive statistics for key independent variables.

# **3.1 Recent trends in large-scale land deals**

Official data on land deals from registries would, in principle, provide the best source of information on the phenomenon (at least for signed deals). However, efforts to obtain such data even for a subset of countries illustrate that, partly because of institutional weaknesses, such information is remarkably difficult to obtain (Deininger _et al._ 2011a). In 6 countries where reasonably reliable information could be

> other institutional contexts (Fauvarque-Cosson and Kerhuel 2009).

> 15 For an interesting perspective on this, see the story of Jarch capital in Southern Sudan as reported in various media (e.g. Funk, 2010).

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