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The Productivity Impacts of Formal and Informal Land Rights: Evidence from Madagascar

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  • Marc F. Bellemare

Abstract

This paper studies the relationship between land rights and agricultural productivity. Whereas previous studies used proxies for soil quality and instrumental variables to control for the endogeneity of land titles, the data used here include precise soil quality measurements, which in principle allow controlling for the unobserved heterogeneity between plots. Empirical results suggest that formal land rights (i.e., land titles) have no impact on productivity, but that informal land rights (i.e., landowners' subjective perceptions of what they can and cannot do with their plots) have heterogeneous impacts on productivity.

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  • Marc F. Bellemare, 2013. "The Productivity Impacts of Formal and Informal Land Rights: Evidence from Madagascar," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 89(2), pages 272-290.
    • Handle: RePEc:uwp:landec:v:89:y:2013:ii:1:p:272-290
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • K11 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Property Law
    • Q15 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Land Ownership and Tenure; Land Reform; Land Use; Irrigation; Agriculture and Environment

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