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The politics of land property rights

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  • Cai, Meina
  • Murtazashvili, Ilia
  • Murtazashvili, Jennifer

Abstract

Legal reforms that improve the security of private property rights to land have characteristics of a public good with dispersed benefits. However, nothing ensures that the state will provide property protection as a public good. Some states provide property protection selectively to powerful groups. Others are unable to provide property protection. In this paper, we argue that whether the state provides property protection as a public good, selectively, or cannot establish private property rights depends on the following features of politics: political stability, government capacity to administer and enforce private property rights, constraints on political decision-makers, and the inclusivity of political and legal institutions. We illustrate the theory using evidence from reforms that increased opportunities to privately own land in the US from the late eighteenth through nineteenth centuries, selective enforcement of land property rights in China, and the absence of credible legal rights to land in Afghanistan.

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  • Cai, Meina & Murtazashvili, Ilia & Murtazashvili, Jennifer, 2020. "The politics of land property rights," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(2), pages 151-167, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jinsec:v:16:y:2020:i:2:p:151-167_4
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    14. Rui Wang & Qianmao Zhu & Matthew Noellert, 2024. "Weak central government, strong legal rights: the origins of divergent legal institutions in 18th-century Chinese and Japanese rice markets," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-15, December.
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