Land law

Abstract: Land policies are of fundamental importance to sustainable growth, good governance, and the well-being of, and the economic opportunities open to, both rural and urban dwellers - particularly the poor. To this end, research on land policy, and analysis of interventions related to the subject, have long been of interest to the Bank's Research Department, and other academic, and civil society institutions. The report aims to strengthen the effectiveness of land policy in support of development, and poverty reduction, by setting out the results of recent research in a way that is accessible to a wide audience of policymakers, nongovernmental organizations, academics in the Bank's client countries, donor agency officials, and the broader development community. Its main message rests on three principles: 1) provision of secure tenure to land improves the welfare of the poor, particularly by enhancing the asset base of those whose land rights are often neglected, and, creates incentives needed for investment, paramount to sustainable economic growth; 2) facilitation of land exchange, and distribution, whether as an asset or for current services, at low cost, through markets, and non-market channels, will expedite land access by productive, but land-poor producers, so that once economic growth improves, financial markets would rely on the use of land as collateral; and, 3) governments' contribution to the promotion of socially desirable land allocation, and utilization. The report discusses mechanisms to promote tenure security, demonstrates the importance of rental market transactions, arguing the removal of impediments to these can generate equity advantages, and positive investments. It also illustrates mechanisms, ranging from taxation, to regulation and land use planning to address these issues.

Abstract: This is the first major study of gender and property in South Asia. In a pioneering and comprehensive analysis Bina Agarwal argues that the single most important economic factor affecting women's situation is the gender gap in command over property. In rural South Asia, the most significant form of property is arable land, a critical determinant of economic well-being, social status, and empowerment. But few women own land; fewer control it. Drawing on a vast range of interdisciplinary sources and her own field research, and tracing regional variations across five countries, the author investigates the complex barriers to women's land ownership and control, and how they might be overcome. The book makes significant and original contributions to theory and policy concerning land reforms, 'bargaining' and gender relations, women's status, and the nature of resistance.

Abstract: AS CRITICISM of the traditional theory of production and exchange has mounted in the postwar period, increasing attention has been given to new analytical approaches that seek either to supplant classical marginalism or to extend its scope. In the latter category is the important body of literature that has grown up around the notion of property rights structures. The contributions here are quite diverse in style and content but are characterized by a common emphasis on certain basic ideas concerning the interconnectedness of ownership rights, incentives, and economic behavior. The purpose of the present paper is to summarize the essential features of this line of research, examine some of its important areas of application, and discuss the promise the approach holds for improved understanding of economic problems.

Abstract: Most work on the relationship between farm size and productivity strongly suggests that farms that rely mostly on family labor are more productive than large farms operated primarily by hired labor. This study began as an inquiry into how rental and sales markets for agricultural land in the developing world affect efficiency and equity. What emerged was the clear sense that great variations in land relations around the world and over time cannot be understood in the common paradigm of property rights and competitive markets. Under that paradigm, land scarcity leads to better definition of rights, which are then traded in sales and rental markets accessible equally to all players. The outcome should be the allocation of land to the most efficient uses and users, yet this rarely happens. Instead, land rights and ownership tend to grow out of power relationships. Landowning groups have used coercion and distortions in land, labor, credit, and commodity markets to extract economic rents from the land, from peasants and workers, and most recently from urban consumer groups or taxpayers. Such rent-seeking activities reduce the efficiency of resource use, retard growth, and increase the poverty of the rural population. The authors examine how these power relations emerged and what legal means enabled relatively few landowners to accumulate and hold on to large landholdings. The authors discuss the successes and failures of reform in market and socialist economies, and the perversions of reforms in both systems, manifested in large commercial farms and collectives. They survey the history of land relations and the legacies that history leaves. They discuss the three analytical controversies surrounding economies of scale, and the efficiency of the land sales and land rental market. They discuss the main policy issues and implications of various distortions and successful and unsuccessful reforms in the developing world, including land registration and titling, land taxation, regulations restricting land sales and rentals, fragmentation and consolidation of land, redistributive land reform, and decollectivization. In an epilogue on methodology, the authors examine how various strands of economic theory have contributed, or failed to contribute, to the explanation of variations in policies, distortions, and land relations over space and time.

Abstract: The evolutionary theory of land rights can be considered the dominant framework of analysis used by mainstream economists to assess the land tenure situation in developing countries, and to make predictions about its evolution. A central tenet of this theoryis that under the joint impact of increasing population pressure and market integration, land rights spontaneously evolve towards rising individualization and that this evolutioneventually leads rightsholders to press for the creation of duly formalized private property rights — a demand to which the state will have an incentive to respond. This article looks critically at the relevance of the evolutionary theory of land rights as currently applied to Sub-Saharan Africa. In particular, the question of whether the establishmentof private property rights is an advisable structural reform in the present circumstancesis examined, in the light of evidence accumulated so far. It will be argued that most of the beneficial effects usually ascribed to such a reform are grossly over-estimated and that, given its high cost, it is generally advisable to look for more appropriate solutions that rely on existing informal mechanisms at community level.