suggest that doubling parcel size is associated with a 6% increase in price at the median (2.75 ha) and a 4% increase at the 75<sup>th</sup> percentile (4.15 ha). By comparison, the price of parcels for personal use exhibits a U- shape, but with the turning point at 6.8 ha prices are negatively associated with parcel size within the observed distribution. Doubling parcel size results in a price decrease by 18% at the median (1.37 ha) and 14% at the 75<sup>th</sup> percentile (2 ha).

Price also follows a U-shaped relationship with field size for both land types. At the median field area (59 ha and 5.22 ha), the estimated size elasticities are 3.7% and 2.5% for commercial and personal land use, respectively. While it slightly increases to 4.3% for commercial use, it more than doubles for personal use when evaluated at the 75<sup>th</sup> percentile (109 ha for commercial use and 36 ha for personal use). The amount buyers are willing to pay increases with the share of field area they cultivate, with a 10% increase in this share raising prices by 2% to 3%. At the same time, buyers who are the largest land users in a field pay prices about 10 percent lower, consistent with the notion that, with atomistic supply, this is a buyer’s market.

The same trade-off is apparent regarding market power: as observed for the case of land leases, large operators pay more for acquiring a given piece of land (e.g., doubling farm size increases price by 10%, 11% and 13% at the 25<sup>th</sup> percentile (24 ha), median (452 ha) and 75<sup>th</sup> percentile (721 ha)), plausibly passing on some of the advantages it enjoys in terms of access to markets for capital or output. At the same time, results in column 5 suggest that buyers who already use some village land benefit from a discount the magnitude of which is increasing with the share of village area used: farms that operate less than one-third, between a third and a half, or more than half of village land, respectively, would, based on regression results, enjoy discounts of 19%, 23% or 25% relative to one that has no operational presence in the village. F-tests rejects equality of estimated coefficients for buyers with less and more than 33% and 50% of village land in columns 5 and 6, respectively, suggesting study of market power in sales markets, ideally by using all registry data to ensure robust coefficient estimates, is warranted.

# **5. Conclusion and policy implications**

Our analysis shows that administrative data on prices and parcel characteristics that are routinely generated but often not systematically captured by land registries offer considerable promise to improve analysis of relatively rare events such as land sales or leases. Regulations to ensure such data are captured and reported without bias and can be linked to relevant spatial and textual attributes thus contribute to an important public good that is particularly relevant in settings undergoing structural transformation or being exposed to shocks that may make traditional modes of data collection more difficult.

Three findings from the analysis are notable: First, land sales market opening increased competition, generating opportunities for landowners to benefit from higher rental prices. The fact that a quarter of 20