Showing papers on "Leasehold estate published in 1996"

Sharecropping in a North Indian Village

Abstract: This article presents a case study of sharecropping in a north Indian village. Drawing on a detailed survey of tenancy relations in the village, it examines a number of issues that have received prominent attention in the literature, including the motives for tenancy, the choice of tenancy contract, the rationale for equal shares, the relationship between tenant and landlord, the efficiency of sharecropping, and interlinkage. The wider implications of this case study are also discussed.

Bonanza! The unasked questions: domestic land tenure through international lenses

Abstract: The lens of U.S. popular culture provided by country and western music and horror films reveals an understanding of property in the United States as complex, contested, and fluid. International scholarship has analyzed property in similar terms. U.S. property relationships are explored here through application of six themes found in the international literature: (1) property as social process, (2) customary tenures, (3) common property and community management of resources, (4) gender, (5) the complexity of tenancy relationships, and (6) land concentration.

Conservation of arboreal herbivores: The Australian scene

Abstract: A common global issue in biological conservation, that of land use allocation and subsequent management practice, is also at the core of the problem of conserving arboreal herbivores in Australia. The problem is caused by a number of biological and cultural factors. Many populations of Australia's terrestrial vertebrate fauna species of forest and woodland environments, including notably the arboreal herbivores, are concentrated in habitats on soils relatively rich in nutrients. Such habitats are limited due to (i) Australia's general aridity and its naturally poor endowment of soils of reasonable quality, and (ii) the extent to which habitats on the better soils have been cleared to service Australia's social and economic development. Land clearing has focused on these better soils because of cultural traditions in agriculture, and society's recognition of the importance of ‘good’ soils to a nation's development. As a result, Australia has legislation and numerous government policies and programmes that aim to identify and make maximum use of the productive potential of Australia's land. For example, the Crown Lands Alienation Act of 1861 was enacted expressly to transfer land from public to private or leasehold tenure and to develop those lands best suited for agriculture and pastoralism. As a result, from 1861 to the end of the nineteenth century, large areas were extensively cleared and potentially commercial forests were destroyed. The remaining uncleared land in private tenure today carries a major part of the woodland and forest resource on the better soils. Woodland and forest associations on these soils are generally poorly represented in reserves. Furthermore, the Australian constitution, and laws concerning the rights of the private landholder and the use of forest resources on leasehold land, indirectly or implicitly encourage or otherwise act to minimize the constraints on continued land clearing. From the above facts and because human populations are expected to increase, the prognosis for Australia's woodland and forest fauna, including the arboreal herbivores, is one of ongoing loss of important habitats. This paper suggests the following measures for ameliorating this loss: identify strategically important habitats, and encourage private philanthropic purchase or government purchase of timber rights, or subsidize the management of these habitats; examine possible trade-offs in public expenditures on forest administration and management in return for public purchase of privately held forests; establish educational programmes that encourage a conservation ethic and a better community understanding of the realities and the extent of the difficulties to be addressed.

A New Plantation South: Land, Labor, and Federal Favor in Twentieth-Century Arkansas

Abstract: Jeannie M. Whayne traces the emergence of a transformed southern plantation system in the Arkansas delta decades after the end of the Civil War. By manipulating laws and federal and state agencies to gain control over land policy, Poinsett County planters fought to maintain their place on the land amidst tenancy, sharecropping, and the mechanization of farming.

Rice land ownership and tenancy systems in southeast asia: facts and issues based on ten village studies

Abstract: APID development in rice farming in Southeast Asia, promoted by significant improvements in infrastructure, technology, and support institutions, has caused substantial changes in the production structure of this staple food during the past decades. In some countries in more recent years, rapid economic development has been achieved by industrialization, with a significant impact on rural society and agricultural production. It is expected that the role of rice farming and related institutions, including land tenure systems, in the village economy have also undergone substantial alterations in the region. From the 1970s through 80s, during the period of rapid change in rice production and macroeconomic conditions in Southeast Asia, I was able to conduct a series of village studies in major rice double-cropping areas in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines. Most of the research findings have already been published as books [1] [3] [5] [6] [7], but it may be worthwhile to put these empirical findings into comparative perspective. It seems audacious to conduct such an overview of Southeast Asia and my analysis is certainly in the nature of a preliminary attempt to verify land tenure systems in major rice-growing areas in the region. The information and discussion on the following subjects will probably be useful for analyzing agrarian transformation to provide a better understanding of the evolution of land tenure and agricultural development in Southeast Asia. This study will attempt to: (1) clarify the current state of land tenure systems and rice

The policy relevance of the State's proprietary power: Lease tenures in Queensland

Abstract: Environmental policies are increasingly entangled with issues relating to property rights. In lands subject to European settlement, landed property rights emerged from the colonising power's claims to beneficial ownership of the land, thereby acquiring proprietary power as well as sovereign power. The proprietary power has been progressively discarded through award of private land titles and through attrition arising from disuse of any residual powers. However, significant proprietary powers are retained in leasehold titles, which continue to prevail in Australia's rangelands. Given their residual capability in reshaping property rights and duties, these powers deserve systematic appraisal as potential instruments for policy implementation, including environmental management. The attributes of freehold and leasehold titles in Queensland are scrutinised in detail. Critical attributes commonly retained in lease titles include: limitations on approved land uses; controls on vegetation clearing; obligations t...

Timber production factor shares by forest tenancy group

Abstract: Knowledge about factor shares in timber production by land ownership assists policymakers in identifying the means for creating income among targeted land owner groups. Factor share identification for timber production is based on the wealth aspects of growing stock, land, and labor. This paper identifies principles relevant to estimating returns to factors of production for forests in a regional economy and presents empirical estimates of factor shares for a region where timber production and wood processing are large components of regional output. Factor shares are shown to differ among land tenancy groups and are a function of land management intensity.

Wage-Homestead Tenancies: Technological Dualism and Tenant Household Size

Abstract: A widespread but little-studied tenancy in the developing world entails the exchange of labor for access to a homestead and a wage. This paper models two distinguishing features of this tenancy: technological dualism between the landlord's and tenants' plot, and landlord preferences over tenant household size. When wages are time denominated, moral hazard may provide incentive for landlords to resist innovation on the homestead. Landlords are shown to prefer larger tenant households under a time wage than under piece-rate. I argue that landlord preferences over tenant household size may have important effects that are ignored in the literature.

Municipal site leasehold in Sweden: A land policy instrument in Decay

Abstract: Municipal site leasehold in Sweden is in need of renovation. Municipalities are troubled with securing returns on investments and increments in land values, leaseholders by unpredictability and sharply increased fees, and both are troubled by growing numbers of costly court cases. As a result, the use of site leasehold has come to a near standstill. Recent developments in the use of site leasehold in Sweden are charted, problems are highlighted, and possible solutions are discussed by way of comparison with other countries. If municipal site leasehold is to play a meaningful role in Swedish land policy, it must be reformed.

Intention and the creation of proprietary rights: are leases different?*

Abstract: There are various angles from which the role of intention in the creation of proprietary rights can be approached. First, since proprietary rights are rights which are legally enforceable, rights which are established by a particular transaction or arrangement cannot take effect as proprietary rights unless the parties intend to create legal relations. So, even in a case where Y is in exclusive occupation of land owned by X and pays X a periodic sum in return for use of the land there is no tenancy - and no contractual licence - if the parties do not intend to enter legal relations.

Riba, Share-tenancy, and Agrarian Reforms

Abstract: Land tenureship may take the form of self-cultivation, contractual workers, leasing and partnership. This paper focuses on the last one known as muzaraah or share-tenancy. After clarifying what riba stands for, it reviews the misgiving about share-tenancy as a case of riba. It also argues at length in favour of share-tenancy as a legitimate mode of land tenure in Shariah. Finally, it also draws attention to some reforms to ameliorate the negative aspects of share-tenancy arrangements currently in vogue. Developing countries are predominantly agricultural economies. The main contractual relation between owners and tillers of land is not an employer-employee but a landlord-tenant bond. Notwithstanding some informal patronage by land-owners, the form of compensation is sharecropping in which tenants usually fare poorly. The control of landlords over lives of tillers grows through indebtedness of the latter to the former. This indebtedness is passed on from generation to generation. Thus practically many peasants become serfs. Marxism championed the cause of workers over the past one hundred years or so. The battle cry was wresting away the ownership of land from landlords, supposedly a solution of the problem at its source. Logical consistency necessitated extension of the same principle to other sectors of economy, in particular, industry. The experience of the Eastern Europe, since the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, has effectively closed the chapter on the socialist remedies. The exploitation theme in moral and social philosophy is rooted in the widely- held view that all rewards should be associated with work effort. In the case of riba (interest), owners of capital assets claim return without playing any active role in productive application of those assets. Thus riba is also treated as synonymous with exploitation. Of course, in the Islamic literature this view is also rationalised on the basis of interpretation of selected Ayat and Ahadith. Since a share-tenancy arrangement also involves a sleeping partner, it is not surprising that some Shariah scholars regard the share-tenancy arrangement a riba case (Tasin (1988)). If this were indeed so, the case for share-tenancy closes without further ado: it has to be treated as a void contract neither negotiable nor enforceable. An immediate implication of this conclusion is narrowing the list of options for land cultivation in Muslim countries such as Pakistan.

A New Image of the Slave Auction: An Empirical Look at the Role of Law in Slave Sales and a Conceptual Reevaluation of the Nature of Slave Property

Abstract: This legal history article presents a new understanding of the nature of slave property. Slave property was divided and fragmented into many different interests including those with application to real property such life estates, remainders, shifting and spring interests, and leasehold interests. With regard to these interests, the article overlays the first-year, law-school property course onto slaves as property. Property interests in slaves were also divided by credit mechanisms including mortgages and secured credit transactions. Warranties are another example of divided property interests in slaves.The fragmented, Hohfeldian nature of slave property distributed the stake that southerners had in the institution of slavery.The article also places this new image of slave property onto the steps of courthouses. Court-ordered and court-supervised sales offered bargain opportunities for southerners to purchase slaves, thereby further extending the investment of southern society in slave property. This article builds upon the author’s earlier findings that a majority of slave auctions in South Carolina were conducted by the courts and that when courts sold slaves, the risk of family separation was higher than when private sellers conducted the sales. The data for this article and the previous study were drawn from antebellum primary sources including trial-court records, the salesbooks of sheriffs, and records of masters in chancery.Presented at Symposium entitled "Bondage, Freedom, and the Constitution: The New Slavery Scholarship and its Impact on Law and Legal Historiography, February 1994

Land management reform in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia : implmentating a public leasehold system

Abstract: The post-socialist government in Ethiopia has been taking steps to institute market mechanisms in its system of land management and allocation. In 1993, the government established the legal basis for a public leasehold system in order to create conditions under which "land use rights" can have value. Prior to this land policy change, a system of public freehold predominated in which land could not be transferred in any way. Implementation of the new policy, however, did not begin until 1995 and thus far, has only occurred in the capital city of Addis Ababa. This thesis investigates the process of how a formal land market can be developed in Addis Ababa. The literature on emerging land markets tells us that institutions to sanction a system of verifiable, transferable, and enforceable property rights are often missing or poorly developed in post-socialist countries. However, policy prescriptions for developing such a system have tended to be based on observations of "institutionally mature land markets" which have evolved over a long time. The conceptual framework for this thesis is that in emerging market economies more effort should be devoted to issues of sequencing and devising short-term measures. Ethiopia's past urban land tenure history is characterized by two distinct institutions, private freehold and public freehold. The period of private land-holding, which was rooted in Ethiopia's early quasi-feudal tradition, conferred wealth, political power, and social status only to a minority who eventually came to dominate the urban property markets. Following the 1974 socialist revolution, the socialist military regime proceeded to set up an elaborate institutional framework that centralized all land management functions. Despite being distinctly different from each other, the centralization of decision-making about land ownership and use in both tenure regimes prevented a viable and efficient land management system from emerging. A third tenure regime has recently been implemented with the objective of restoring urban land markets throughout Ethiopia. As in past history, this institution confers significant responsibility and power to the government. At the same time, market mechanisms are being put in place to create an efficient land market. This thesis makes several recommendations for how such a system can be developed. With implementation of the lease scheme only one year old and with little knowledge about the current and past institutional structures, the question of how such a system will be developed deserves further investigation.

Tenency, Credit Markets, Segmentation, and Hierarchical Loan Contracts

Abstract: The paper studies the competitive strategies of two informal lenders, traders and landlords, in the provision of credit to tenants. Each lender has a distinct market or enforcement advantage. It is shown that when lenders compete 'directly', i.e. in contracts, the landlord has the 'interlocker's edge' but the trader will lend to tenants. If 'indirect' strategies are allowed, however, a more segmented market emerges. Traders lend to the tenants of 'small' landlords, while 'larger' landlords borrow from traders and on-lend to their own tenants. It is shown that such hierarchically linked contracts can reduce tenant welfare. Further, the terms of the tenancy contract vary systematically with the tenant's loan source. The model's predictions are tested empirically.

Vergleichsmietensystem und Kündigungsrecht: Reform der Regulierungen des Wohnungsmarktes?

Abstract: The interest in the German system of comparable rents was revived recently by the proposals of the experts’ commission on housing policy. A political discussion about simplifying the complex rules of the German tenancy laws has begun. The German system of rent controls hampers the adjustment of the housing market in the case of unexpected demand shocks. It favors long-term tenancy to an unjustifiable degree. The rules should be reformed in a way that allows for more price flexibility in existing contracts. If the outcome of spontaneous contracting were efficient, binding rental tables could be given up completely. If the outcome were unsatisfactory, new methods for simulating the market mechanism by the means of rental tables would have to be developed.

The Landlord and Tenant (Covenants) Act 1995

Abstract: Outlines the details of the changes made to The Landlord and Tenant (Covenants) Act 1995. Examines principal provisions of the Act, i.e. those affecting new tenancies, and summarizes the reforms set out in sections 17‐20. Also briefly looks at further provisions, i.e. sections 9, 10, 12, 13. Concludes that the Act represents a compromise.

Market rents: the role of the Rent Assessment Committee under the 1988 housing legislation - the Scottish experience

Abstract: This study looks at applications to the Rent Assessment Committee (RAC) operating the assured tenancy legislation under the Housing (Scotland) Act 1988. It is based on an examination of all the applications made to the RAC in Scotland over a six-year period between 1989 and the end of 1994. It covers the role of the Committees in fixing market rents in relation to statutory assured tenancies and short assured tenancies (equivalent of 'shorthold assured' tenancy) and discusses the criteria identified in these processes. It also looks at the other work of the Rent Assessment Committee which casts light on how the private rented market is operating in the 1990s. It concludes that the level and nature of applications to Rent Assessment Committees has resulted in few decisions which can usefully be used by either landlords' or tenants' advisers as precedents. There have been limited and largely anodyne Notes of Reasons. The level of application withdrawal is high. Various reasons have been put forward based on anecdotal evidence but further work is required to test these hypotheses

Florida Agriculture and the Collapse of the State Farmers Alliance, 1880-1891

Abstract: In the last half of the 19th century, a new national economic system emerged from the factory expansions of the Civil War. Characterized by tight money supplies, expensive credit, and powerful bankers and railroad monopolies, the post-war economic regime established an industrialist class in Northeastern cities while leaving millions in poverty and farm tenancy in the countryside, particularly in the South and the Midwest. In the process, it set in motion a new populist consciousness among the poor. The Farmers Alliance was one of many organizational expressions of this emerging consciousness.