IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/17718.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Rural Demography, Public Services and Land Rights in Africa: A Village-Level Analysis in Burkina Faso

Author

Listed:
  • Margaret S. McMillan
  • William A. Masters
  • Harounan Kazianga

Abstract

This paper uses historical census data from Burkina Faso to characterize local demographic pressures associated with internal migration into river valleys after Onchocerciasis eradication, combined with a new survey of village elders to document change over time and differences across villages in local public goods provision, market institutions and land use rights. We hypothesize that higher local population densities are associated with more public goods and a transition from open-access to regulated land use. Controlling for province or village fixed effects, we find that villages' variance in population associated with proximity to rivers is closely correlated with higher levels of infrastructure, markets and individual land rights, as opposed to familial or communal rights. Responding to population growth with both improved public services and private property rights is consistent with both scale effects in public good provision, and changes in the scarcity of land.

Suggested Citation

  • Margaret S. McMillan & William A. Masters & Harounan Kazianga, 2011. "Rural Demography, Public Services and Land Rights in Africa: A Village-Level Analysis in Burkina Faso," NBER Working Papers 17718, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17718
    Note: EH PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w17718.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Grimm, Michael & Klasen, Stephan, 2007. "Geography vs. Institutions at the Village Level," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Göttingen 2007 9, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    2. Bloom, David E & Williamson, Jeffrey G, 1998. "Demographic Transitions and Economic Miracles in Emerging Asia," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 12(3), pages 419-455, September.
    3. Margaret McMillan, 2001. "Why Kill The Golden Goose? A Political-Economy Model Of Export Taxation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(1), pages 170-184, February.
    4. Kazianga, Harounan & Masters, William A., 2002. "Investing in soils: field bunds and microcatchments in Burkina Faso," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(3), pages 571-591, July.
    5. Imbens, Guido W & Angrist, Joshua D, 1994. "Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 467-475, March.
    6. Masters, William A & McMillan, Margaret S, 2001. "Climate and Scale in Economic Growth," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 6(3), pages 167-186, September.
    7. Rémi Jedwab & Alexandre Moradi, 2011. "Transportation Infrastructure and Development in Ghana," PSE Working Papers halshs-00607207, HAL.
    8. Alberto Alesina & Eliana La Ferrara, 2003. "Ethnic Diversity and Economic Performance," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 2028, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    9. Card, David, 2001. "Estimating the Return to Schooling: Progress on Some Persistent Econometric Problems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(5), pages 1127-1160, September.
    10. Hoyt Bleakley, 2007. "Disease and Development: Evidence from Hookworm Eradication in the American South," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(1), pages 73-117.
    11. Raghabendra Chattopadhyay & Esther Duflo, 2004. "Women as Policy Makers: Evidence from a Randomized Policy Experiment in India," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(5), pages 1409-1443, September.
    12. Margaret S. McMillan & William A. Masters, 2003. "An African Growth Trap: Production Technology and the Time‐Consistency of Agricultural Taxation, R&D and Investment," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(2), pages 179-191, May.
    13. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson, 2007. "Disease and Development: The Effect of Life Expectancy on Economic Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(6), pages 925-985, December.
    14. Andrews,Donald W. K. & Stock,James H. (ed.), 2005. "Identification and Inference for Econometric Models," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521844413, September.
    15. Harounan Kazianga & William A. Masters, 2006. "Property rights, production technology, and deforestation: cocoa in Cameroon," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 35(1), pages 19-26, July.
    16. Olmstead, Alan L & Rhode, Paul, 1993. "Induced Innovation in American Agriculture: A Reconsideration," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(1), pages 100-118, February.
    17. David Cutler & Winnie Fung & Michael Kremer & Monica Singhal & Tom Vogl, 2010. "Early-Life Malaria Exposure and Adult Outcomes: Evidence from Malaria Eradication in India," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 72-94, April.
    18. Chambers, Robert, 1994. "The origins and practice of participatory rural appraisal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 22(7), pages 953-969, July.
    19. Besley, Timothy, 1995. "Property Rights and Investment Incentives: Theory and Evidence from Ghana," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(5), pages 903-937, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Muyanga, Milu & Jayne, T.S., 2014. "Effects of rising rural population density on smallholder agriculture in Kenya," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 98-113.
    2. Josephson, Anna Leigh & Ricker-Gilbert, Jacob & Florax, Raymond J.G.M., 2014. "How does population density influence agricultural intensification and productivity? Evidence from Ethiopia," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 142-152.
    3. Meinzen-Dick, Laura, 2020. "Decentralization and Elections in Burkina Faso," 2020 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, Kansas City, Missouri 304447, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    4. Ricker-Gilbert, Jacob & Jumbe, Charles & Chamberlin, Jordan, 2014. "How does population density influence agricultural intensification and productivity? Evidence from Malawi," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 114-128.
    5. Kazianga, Harounan & Masters, William A. & McMillan, Margaret S., 2014. "Disease control, demographic change and institutional development in Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 313-326.
    6. Estelle Koussoubé, 2014. "What Drives Land Sales and Rentals in Rural Africa: Evidence from Western Burkina Faso," Working Papers DT/2014/10, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).

    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. Kazianga, Harounan & Masters, William A. & McMillan, Margaret S., 2014. "Disease control, demographic change and institutional development in Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 313-326.
    2. Margaret S. McMillan & William A. Masters & Harounan Kazianga, 2014. "Demographic Pressure and Institutional Change: Village-Level Response to Rural Population Growth in Burkina Faso," NBER Chapters, in: African Successes, Volume I: Government and Institutions, pages 103-143, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. repec:nbr:nberch:13373 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    5. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo, 2009. "The Experimental Approach to Development Economics," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 151-178, May.
    6. Rohini Pande & Christopher Udry, 2005. "Institutions and Development:A View from Below," Working Papers 928, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    7. Fumagalli, Elena & Pinna Pintor, M & Suhrcke, Marc, 2024. "The impact of health on economic growth: A narrative literature review," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    8. Madsen, Jakob B., 2016. "Barriers to Prosperity: Parasitic and Infectious Diseases, IQ, and Economic Development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 172-187.
    9. Das Gupta, Monica & Bongaarts, John & Cleland, John, 2011. "Population, poverty, and sustainable development : a review of the evidence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5719, The World Bank.
    10. González-Uribe, Juanita & Reyes, Santiago, 2021. "Identifying and boosting “Gazelles”: Evidence from business accelerators," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 260-287.
    11. Anupam Jena & Casey Mulligan & Tomas J. Philipson & Eric Sun, 2008. "The Value of Life in General Equilibrium," NBER Working Papers 14157, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Schultz, T. Paul, 2010. "Population and Health Policies," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4785-4881, Elsevier.
    13. Leandro Prados de la Escosura, 2021. "Augmented human development in the age of globalization," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 74(4), pages 946-975, November.
    14. Bloom, David E. & Canning, David & Kotschy, Rainer & Prettner, Klaus & Schünemann, Johannes, 2024. "Health and economic growth: Reconciling the micro and macro evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    15. Murtazashvili, Irina & Wooldridge, Jeffrey M., 2016. "A control function approach to estimating switching regression models with endogenous explanatory variables and endogenous switching," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 190(2), pages 252-266.
    16. Chih Ming Tan, 2010. "No one true path: uncovering the interplay between geography, institutions, and fractionalization in economic development," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(7), pages 1100-1127, November/.
    17. Leandro Prados de la Escosura, 2015. "World Human Development: 1870–2007," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(2), pages 220-247, June.
    18. Barteska, Philipp & Dobkowitz, Sonja & Olkkola, Maarit & Rieser, Michael, 2023. "Mass vaccination and educational attainment: Evidence from the 1967–68 Measles Eradication Campaign," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    19. Mohammad Mainul Hoque & Elizabeth M. King & Claudio E. Montenegro & Peter F. Orazem, 2019. "Revisiting the relationship between longevity and lifetime education: global evidence from 919 surveys," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 32(2), pages 551-589, April.
    20. Bhalotra, Sonia R. & Venkataramani, Atheendar, 2011. "The Captain of the Men of Death and His Shadow: Long-Run Impacts of Early Life Pneumonia Exposure," IZA Discussion Papers 6041, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    21. Rosolia, Alfonso & Cipollone, Piero, 2011. "Schooling and Youth Mortality: Learning from a Mass Military Exemption," CEPR Discussion Papers 8431, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F20 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - General
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O20 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:nbr:nberwo:17718. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.