IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/lauspo/v140y2024ics0264837724000620.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The legacy of partible inheritance on farmland fragmentation: Evidence from Austria

Author

Listed:
  • Gatterer, Markus
  • Leonhardt, Heidi
  • Salhofer, Klaus
  • Morawetz, Ulrich

Abstract

Partible inheritance is considered an important driver in the fragmentation of farmland use and ownership, but this lacks empirical evidence. We combine parcel-level data on land use and land ownership with historical information on inheritance traditions from Eastern Austria where partible and impartible inheritance coexisted. We use multiple regression analysis with coarsened exact matching to show that farmland is more fragmented in partible inheritance regions. Despite partially consolidating their farmland via the rental market, farms in these areas own less land, farm smaller and more scattered parcels, and have more landowners than farms in regions with an impartible inheritance tradition. Policy makers should thus ensure functioning land markets and facilitate land consolidation measures to counteract the legacies of historical fragmentation processes.

Suggested Citation

  • Gatterer, Markus & Leonhardt, Heidi & Salhofer, Klaus & Morawetz, Ulrich, 2024. "The legacy of partible inheritance on farmland fragmentation: Evidence from Austria," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:140:y:2024:i:c:s0264837724000620
    DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2024.107110
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837724000620
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.landusepol.2024.107110?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sergio H. Lence & Douglas J. Miller, 1999. "Transaction Costs and the Present Value Model of Farmland: Iowa, 1900–1994," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 81(2), pages 257-272.
    2. Blarel, Benoit, et al, 1992. "The Economics of Farm Fragmentation: Evidence from Ghana and Rwanda," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 6(2), pages 233-254, May.
    3. Klaus Deininger, 2003. "Land Policies for Growth and Poverty Reduction," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 15125.
    4. Erwin Knippenberg & Dean Jolliffe & John Hoddinott, 2020. "Land Fragmentation and Food Insecurity in Ethiopia," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(5), pages 1557-1577, October.
    5. Leonhardt, Heidi & Penker, Marianne & Salhofer, Klaus, 2019. "Do farmers care about rented land? A multi-method study on land tenure and soil conservation," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 228-239.
    6. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2009. "Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8769.
    7. Ntihinyurwa, Pierre Damien & de Vries, Walter Timo & Chigbu, Uchendu Eugene & Dukwiyimpuhwe, Patrick Acklam, 2019. "The positive impacts of farm land fragmentation in Rwanda," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 565-581.
    8. Pavel Ciaian & Edoardo Baldoni & d'Artis Kancs & Dušan Drabik, 2021. "The Capitalization of Agricultural Subsidies into Land Prices," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 13(1), pages 17-38, October.
    9. Gonzalez, X. P. & Alvarez, C. J. & Crecente, R., 2004. "Evaluation of land distributions with joint regard to plot size and shape," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 31-43, October.
    10. Looga, J. & Jürgenson, E. & Sikk, K. & Matveev, E. & Maasikamäe, S., 2018. "Land fragmentation and other determinants of agricultural farm productivity: The case of Estonia," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 285-292.
    11. Iacus, Stefano M. & King, Gary & Porro, Giuseppe, 2011. "Multivariate Matching Methods That Are Monotonic Imbalance Bounding," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 106(493), pages 345-361.
    12. Yu, Peiheng & Fennell, Shailaja & Chen, Yiyun & Liu, Hui & Xu, Lu & Pan, Jiawei & Bai, Shaoyun & Gu, Shixiang, 2022. "Positive impacts of farmland fragmentation on agricultural production efficiency in Qilu Lake watershed: Implications for appropriate scale management," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    13. Tracy Bradfield & Robert Butler & Emma Dillon & Thia Hennessy & Paul Kilgarriff, 2021. "The Effect of Land Fragmentation on the Technical Inefficiency of Dairy Farms," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(2), pages 486-499, June.
    14. Felicity Addo & Klaus Salhofer, 2022. "Transient and persistent technical efficiency and its determinants: the case of crop farms in Austria," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(25), pages 2916-2932, May.
    15. Halvorsen, Robert & Palmquist, Raymond, 1980. "The Interpretation of Dummy Variables in Semilogarithmic Equations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(3), pages 474-475, June.
    16. Liesbet Vranken & Ewa Tabeau & Peter Roebeling & Pavel Ciaian, 2021. "Agricultural land market regulations in the EU Member States," JRC Research Reports JRC126310, Joint Research Centre.
    17. Ho, Daniel & Imai, Kosuke & King, Gary & Stuart, Elizabeth A., 2011. "MatchIt: Nonparametric Preprocessing for Parametric Causal Inference," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 42(i08).
    18. Tan, Shuhao & Heerink, Nico & Kruseman, Gideon & Qu, Futian, 2008. "Do fragmented landholdings have higher production costs? Evidence from rice farmers in Northeastern Jiangxi province, P.R. China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 347-358, September.
    19. Phuc Van Phan & Martin O'Brien, 2022. "Is small beautiful? An empirical analysis of land characteristics and rural household income in Vietnam," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 66(3), pages 561-580, July.
    20. Iacus, Stefano & King, Gary & Porro, Giuseppe, 2009. "cem: Software for Coarsened Exact Matching," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 30(i09).
    21. Laure Latruffe & Chantal Le Mouël, 2009. "Capitalization Of Government Support In Agricultural Land Prices: What Do We Know?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(4), pages 659-691, September.
    22. Tran, Tuyen Quang & Vu, Huong Van, 2019. "Land fragmentation and household income: First evidence from rural Vietnam," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    23. Nguyen, Huy Quynh, 2017. "Analyzing the economies of crop diversification in rural Vietnam using an input distance function," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 148-156.
    24. Valtiala, Juho & Niskanen, Olli & Torvinen, Mikael & Riekkinen, Kirsikka & Suokannas, Antti, 2023. "The relationship between agricultural land parcel size and cultivation costs," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    25. Lu, Hua & Xie, Hualin & He, Yafen & Wu, Zhilong & Zhang, Xinmin, 2018. "Assessing the impacts of land fragmentation and plot size on yields and costs: A translog production model and cost function approach," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 81-88.
    26. Benin, S. & Smale, M. & Pender, J. & Gebremedhin, B. & Ehui, S., 2004. "The economic determinants of cereal crop diversity on farms in the Ethiopian highlands," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 31(2-3), pages 197-208, December.
    27. Iacus, Stefano M. & King, Gary & Porro, Giuseppe, 2012. "Causal Inference without Balance Checking: Coarsened Exact Matching," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 1-24, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shukun Wang & Dengwang Li & Tingting Li & Changquan Liu, 2021. "Land Use Transitions and Farm Performance in China: A Perspective of Land Fragmentation," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-22, July.
    2. Ndip, Francis Ebai & Molua, Ernest L. & Mvodo, Meyo-Elise Stephanie & Nkendah, Robert & Djomo Choumbou, Raoul Fani & Tabetando, Rayner & Akem, Nina Fabinin, 2023. "Farmland Fragmentation, crop diversification and incomes in Cameroon, a Congo Basin country," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    3. Georgina Milne & Andrew William Byrne & Emma Campbell & Jordon Graham & John McGrath & Raymond Kirke & Wilma McMaster & Jesko Zimmermann & Adewale Henry Adenuga, 2022. "Quantifying Land Fragmentation in Northern Irish Cattle Enterprises," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-16, March.
    4. Alessi, Lucia & Battiston, Stefano & Kvedaras, Virmantas, 2024. "Over with carbon? Investors’ reaction to the Paris Agreement and the US withdrawal," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    5. Alessi, Lucia & Battiston, Stefano & Kvedaras, Virmantas, 2021. "Over with carbon? Investors' reaction to the Paris Agreement and the US withdrawal," JRC Working Papers in Economics and Finance 2021-12, Joint Research Centre, European Commission.
    6. Pierre Damien Ntihinyurwa & Walter Timo de Vries, 2021. "Farmland Fragmentation, Farmland Consolidation and Food Security: Relationships, Research Lapses and Future Perspectives," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-39, January.
    7. Ntihinyurwa, Pierre Damien & de Vries, Walter Timo, 2021. "Farmland fragmentation concourse: Analysis of scenarios and research gaps," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    8. Ye, Sijing & Ren, Shuyi & Song, Changqing & Du, Zhenbo & Wang, Kuangxu & Du, Bin & Cheng, Feng & Zhu, Dehai, 2024. "Spatial pattern of cultivated land fragmentation in mainland China: Characteristics, dominant factors, and countermeasures," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    9. Wojewodzic, Tomasz & Janus, Jaroslaw & Dacko, Mariusz & Pijanowski, Jacek & Taszakowski, Jaroslaw, 2021. "Measuring the effectiveness of land consolidation: An economic approach based on selected case studies from Poland," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    10. Shige Song & Lu Zheng, 2016. "The impact of sent-down movement on Chinese women's age at first marriage," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 34(28), pages 797-826.
    11. Akkaya Aslan, Şerife Tülin, 2021. "Evaluation of land consolidation projects with parcel shape and dispersion," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    12. Phuc Van Phan & Martin O'Brien, 2022. "Is small beautiful? An empirical analysis of land characteristics and rural household income in Vietnam," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 66(3), pages 561-580, July.
    13. Guignet, Dennis & Jenkins, Robin R. & Belke, James & Mason, Henry, 2023. "The property value impacts of industrial chemical accidents," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    14. Davidson Heath & Giorgo Sertsios, 2022. "Profitability and Financial Leverage: Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(11), pages 8386-8410, November.
    15. Christian Almer & Stefan Boes & Stephan Nüesch, 2017. "Adjustments in the housing market after an environmental shock: evidence from a large-scale change in aircraft noise exposure," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 69(4), pages 918-938.
    16. Swami, Megha & Scott, Anthony, 2021. "Impact of rural workforce incentives on access to GP services in underserved areas: Evidence from a natural experiment," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 281(C).
    17. Matteo Picchio & Michele Ubaldi, 2023. "Intergenerational Scars: The Impact Of Parental Unemployment On Individual Health Later In Life," Working Papers 478, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
    18. Yishao Shi & Qianqian Yang & Liangliang Zhou & Shouzheng Shi, 2022. "Can Moderate Agricultural Scale Operations Be Developed against the Background of Plot Fragmentation and Land Dispersion? Evidence from the Suburbs of Shanghai," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-22, July.
    19. Deininger, Klaus & Savastano, Sara & Carletto, Calogero, 2012. "Land Fragmentation, Cropland Abandonment, and Land Market Operation in Albania," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(10), pages 2108-2122.
    20. Yiwei Qian & Rodolfo M. Nayga & Michael R. Thomsen & Heather L. Rouse, 2016. "The Effect of the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program on Childhood Obesity," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 38(2), pages 260-275.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:140:y:2024:i:c:s0264837724000620. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joice Jiang (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/land-use-policy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.