IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jecomi/v11y2023i10p258-d1261246.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Land Reform and Its Effect on Farm Household Income Inequality: Evidence from Georgia

Author

Listed:
  • Ayal Kimhi

    (Department of Environmental Economics and Management, The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, Institute of Environmental Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, P.O. Box 12, Rehovot 7610000, Israel)

Abstract

This article examines the importance of landholdings in explaining income inequality among family farms in four districts in Georgia following the land reform of the 1990s. Income inequality is decomposed by sources of income and by determinants of income. The results indicate that farm income is a disequalizing source of income among family farms in these districts. In addition, a uniform increase in landholding is expected to reduce income inequality. Combining the two results, we conclude that the impact of land reform on farm household income inequality depends on the resulting distribution of landholdings. It can reduce inequality if land is distributed relatively equally, but inequality can increase if the wealthier farmers are able to gain control of more (and perhaps better) land resources. A possible implication of this result is that for land reform to be equalizing, distributing land to smallholders should be accompanied by additional policies and regulations supporting small farmers, such as land titling and registration, support for cooperation, and access to credit and other market services.

Suggested Citation

  • Ayal Kimhi, 2023. "Land Reform and Its Effect on Farm Household Income Inequality: Evidence from Georgia," Economies, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-11, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jecomi:v:11:y:2023:i:10:p:258-:d:1261246
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7099/11/10/258/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7099/11/10/258/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Elbers, Chris & Lanjouw, Peter, 2001. "Intersectoral Transfer, Growth, and Inequality in Rural Ecuador," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 481-496, March.
    2. Cowell, Frank A & Jenkins, Stephen P, 1995. "How Much Inequality Can We Explain? A Methodology and an Application to the United States," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(429), pages 421-430, March.
    3. LERMAN, Zvi, 2009. "Land reform, farm structure, and agricultural performance in CIS countries," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 316-326, June.
    4. Zvi Lerman, 1999. "Land Reform and Farm Restructuring: What Has Been Accomplished to Date?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 271-275, May.
    5. Sebastian Leitner & Mario Holzner, 2008. "Economic Inequality in Central, East and Southeast Europe," European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 5(1), pages 155-188.
    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. Schott, Johanna & Kalatas, Talin & Nercissians, Emilia & Barkmann, Jan & Shelia, Vakhtang, 2016. "The impact of protected areas on local livelihoods in the South Caucasus [Naturschutzgebiete und ihre Auswirkungen auf die Erwerbsquellen der lokalen Anrainerbevölkerung im Südkaukasus]," IAMO Discussion Papers 152, Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO).
    2. Schott, Johanna & Kalatas, Talin & Nercissians, Emilia & Barkmann, Jan & Shelia, Vakhtang, 2016. "The impact of protected areas on local livelihoods in the South Caucasus," IAMO Discussion Papers 234108, Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO).
    3. Kimhi, Ayal, 2009. "Land Reform and Farm-Household Income Inequality: The Case of Georgia," Discussion Papers 54159, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Agricultural Economics and Management.
    4. repec:zbw:iamodp:234108 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Maja Micevska & Dil Bahadur Rahut, 2008. "Rural Nonfarm Employment and Incomes in the Himalayas," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(1), pages 163-193, October.
    6. Katie M. Jajtner & Sophie Mitra & Christine Fountain & Austin Nichols, 2020. "Rising Income Inequality Through a Disability Lens: Trends in the United States 1981–2018," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 151(1), pages 81-114, August.
    7. Petrick, Martin, 2017. "Incentive provision to farm workers in post-socialist settings: evidence from East Germany and North Kazakhstan," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 20(2), pages 239-256.
    8. Vani K. Borooah & Colin Knox, 2015. "The Economics of Schooling in a Divided Society," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-137-46187-2, October.
    9. Zelda Okatch & Abu Siddique & Anu Rammohan, 2013. "Determinants of Income Inequality in Botswana," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 13-15, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    10. Vani K. Borooah & John Mangan, 2012. "Mistaking Style for Substance," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 13(3), pages 266-287, June.
    11. Cecilia García-Peñalosa & Elsa Orgiazzi, 2013. "Factor Components of Inequality: A Cross-Country Study," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 59(4), pages 689-727, December.
    12. Paul Winters & Timothy Essam & Alberto Zezza & Benjamin Davis & Calogero Carletto, 2010. "Patterns of Rural Development: A Cross‐Country Comparison using Microeconomic Data," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(3), pages 628-651, September.
    13. Borooah, Vani, 2014. "The Concentration and Distribution of Votes," MPRA Paper 76621, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Cecilia Garcia Peñalosa & Orgiazzi, E., 2011. "GINI DP 12: Factor Components of Inequality. A Cross-Country Study," GINI Discussion Papers 12, AIAS, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies.
    15. Borooah, Vani K. & Knox, Colin, 2015. "Segregation, inequality, and educational performance in Northern Ireland: Problems and solutions," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 196-206.
    16. Reardon, Thomas & Berdegue, Julio & Escobar, German, 2001. "Rural Nonfarm Employment and Incomes in Latin America: Overview and Policy Implications," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 395-409, March.
    17. Lay, Jann & M'Mukaria, George Michuki & Omar Mahmoud, Toman, 2007. "Boda-bodas rule: Non-agricultural activities and their inequality implications in Western Kenya," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 6543, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    18. De, Indranil & Pohit, Sanjib & Das, Samantak, 2008. "Health Sector Reforms in India: A Situation Analysis," MPRA Paper 94621, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Bourguignon, François & Bussolo, Maurizio, 2013. "Income Distribution in Computable General Equilibrium Modeling," Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, in: Peter B. Dixon & Dale Jorgenson (ed.), Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 1383-1437, Elsevier.
    20. Christian Ahlin & Hyeok Jeong, 2021. "A conditional Gini: measure, estimation, and application," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 19(2), pages 363-384, June.
    21. Sebastian Leitner, 2015. "Effects of Income Inequality on Population Health and Social Outcomes at the Regional Level in the EU," wiiw Working Papers 113, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.

    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:gam:jecomi:v:11:y:2023:i:10:p:258-:d:1261246. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.