# 5. **Conclusion**

Evidence from a program for land titling and registration from Nicaragua's agrarian reform sector indicates that this program managed to target the poor and, to the extent that it was properly implemented, also (i) resulted in a significant increase in tenure security and land-attached investments; (ii) shifted investment towards land-related items with high economic retums which were previously discriminated against; and (iii) caused an appreciable increase in land prices. The fact that the program was targeted towards the agrarian reform sector and that changes in the design, in particular the shift from awarding only agrarian reform titles to full registration, were made exogenously, allows to allay fears of endogeneity and reverse causality that typically plague evaluations of land titling programs. Availability of information on a large and nationally representative control group of non-beneficiaries outside the reform sector, together with the ability to compare land values of multiple plots within the same households, allow us not only to control for unobservable variables that might result in biased coefficients but also to empirically demonstrate that such bias does indeed exist. This indicates that, in an environment where tenure insecurity is high and endemic, a systematic program of land titling can provide significant economic benefits to the poor. We conclude by highlighting a number of implications for policy as well as research.

A first conclusion is that the legal validity of the titles distributed under a titling program clearly matters. The ability to discern a clear investment and land price effect suggests that there may be a wider range of situations with endemic insecurity where interventions to enhance tenure security, if building on a clear legal basis, can be justified. At the same time, the fact that even in Nicaragua, the majority of the titles received was not properly registered suggests that, in many cases, the failure to find a significant impact of titling in the literature may be due to the fact that the legal value of the documents awarded may have been deficient or doubtful. This highlights the need that sufficient attention be devoted to ensuring the legal validity of certificates to be distributed, especially in view of the fact that implementing agencies, as well as international donors, often may have a strong preference to maximize the number of certificates issued, rather than their quality, to demonstrate high levels of accomplishment. Whether, in specific settings, the failure to detect an impact of titling programs may be due to the fact that the certificates issued were of limited legal validity, is an interesting proposition that might be explored further.

Second, the effect of land title on land values, together with the descriptive evidence suggesting that titling has benefited those who were less well off, suggests that, by giving the poor more secure property rights to assets which they already own, titling could help improve the distribution of assets and economic opportunities. Observing such an effect in a relatively land abundant environment where credit is of limited importance and most of the investments considered are highly labor-intensive suggests that the 19