Causes and consequences of civil strife - micro-level evidence from Uganda

To bridge the gap between case studies and highly aggregate cross-country analyses of civil unrest, the author uses data from Uganda to explore determinants of civil strife (as contrasted to theft and physical violence) at the community level, as well as the potentially differential impact of these variables on investment and nonagricultural enterprise formation at the household level. He finds that distance from infrastructure (a proxy for scarcity of economic opportunities and government investment), asset inequality (social tension), the presence of cash crops (expropriable wealth), and lower levels of human capital (ability to take advantage of opportunities in the"regular"economy) all increase the propensity for civil strife. Furthermore, civil strife, in marked contrast to violence and theft, reduces investment and nonagricultural enterprise start-ups.Education and Society,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Decentralization,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Economic Theory&Research,Education and Society,Environmental Economics&Policies,Poverty Assessment,Information Technology

Making negotiated land reform work : initial experience from Brazil, Colombia, and South Africa

The author describes a new type of negotiated land reform that relies on voluntary land transfers negotiated between buyers and sellers, with the government's role restricted to establishing the necessary framework for negotiation and making a land purchase grant available to eligible beneficiaries. This approach has emerged-following the end of the Cold War and broad macroeconomic adjustment--as many countries face a second generation of reforms to address deep-rooted structural problems and provide a basis for sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction. The author describes initial experiences in Brazil, Colombia, and South Africa. It is too soon to know whether negotiated land reform can rise to the challenges administrative land reform failed to solve but the data so far suggests that: 1) Negotiated land reform can succeed only if measures are taken to make the market for land sales and rentals more fluid transparent. 2) Productive projects are likely to be the key to market-assisted land reform. The potential for project productivity establishes an upper bound on the price to be paid and a basis for financial intermediaries to evaluate the project. It also requires beneficiaries to familiarize themselves with the realities they're likely to confront as independent farmers and the limits to how much land reform can help them achieve their goals. 3) The only way to effectively coordinate the entities involved in the process is through decentralized, demand-driven implementation. 4) The long-run success of land reform depends on getting the private sector involved and using the land purchase grant to"crowd in"private money.Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Municipal Housing and Land,Land Use and Policies,Environmental Economics&Policies,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Municipal Housing and Land,Rural Land Policies for Poverty Reduction,Banks&Banking Reform

The rise of large farms in land abundant countries : do they have a future ?

Increased levels and volatility of food prices has led to a surge of interest in large-scale agriculture and land acquisition. This creates challenges for policy makers aiming to establish a policy environment conducive to an agrarian structure to contribute to broad-based development in the long term. Based on a historical review of episodes of growth of large farms and their impact, this paper identifies factors underlying the dominance of owner-operated farm structures and ways in which these may change with development. The amount of land that could potentially be available for expansion and the level of productivity in exploiting available land resources are used to establish a country-level typology. The authors highlight that an assessment of the advantages of large operations, together with information on endowments, can provide input into strategy formulation at the country level. A review of recent cases of land acquisition reinforces the importance of the policy framework in determining outcomes. It suggests that transparency and contract enforcement, recognition of local land rights and ways in which they can be exercised, attention to employment effects and technical viability, and mechanisms to re-allocate land from unsuccessful ventures to more productive entrepreneurs are key areas warranting the attention of policy makers.Environmental Economics&Policies,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Rural Development Knowledge&Information Systems,Banks&Banking Reform,Labor Policies

Longer-term economic impacts of self-help groups in india

Despite the popularity and unique nature of women's self-help groups in India, evidence of their economic impacts is scant. Based on two rounds of a 2,400 household panel, the authors use double differences, propensity score matching, and pipeline comparison to assess economic impacts of longer (2.5-3 years) exposure of a program that promoted and strengthened self-help programs in Andhra Pradesh in India. The analysis finds that longer program exposure has positive impacts on consumption, nutritional intake, and asset accumulation. Investigating heterogeneity of the impacts suggests that even the poorest households were able to benefit from the program. Furthermore, overall benefits would exceed program cost by a significant margin even under conservative assumptions.Access to Finance,,Rural Poverty Reduction,Poverty Monitoring&Analysis,Debt Markets

Asset distribution, inequality, and growth

With the recent resurgence of interest in equity, inequality, and growth, the possibility of a negative relationship between inequality and economic growth, has received renewed interest in the literature. Faced with the prospect that high levels of inequality may persist, and give rise to poverty traps, policymakers are paying more attention to the distributional implications of macroeconomic policies. Because high levels of inequality may hurt overall growth, policymakers are exploring measures to promote growth and equity at the same time. How the consequences of inequality are analyzed, along with the possible cures, depends partly on how inequality is measured. The authors use assets (land) rather than income - and a GMM estimator - to examine the robustness of the relationship between inequality and growth that has been observed in the cross-sectional literature, but has been drawn into question by recent studies using panel techniques. They find evidence that asset inequality - but not income inequality - has a relatively large negative impact on growth. They also find that a highly unequal distribution of assets reduces the effectiveness of educational interventions. This means that policymakers should be more concerned about households'access to assets, and to the opportunities associated with them, than about the distribution of income. Long-term growth might be improved by measures to prevent large jumps in asset inequality - possibly irreversible asset loss because of exogenous shocks - and by policies to facilitate asset accumulation by the poor.International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Poverty Impact Evaluation,Services&Transfers to Poor,Inequality,Governance Indicators,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Achieving Shared Growth

Economic and Welfare Effects of the Abolition of Health User Fees : Evidence from Uganda

The authors use household level data for Uganda for 1999-2000 and 2002-03, before and after the abolition of user fees for public health services, to explore the effect of this policy on different groups'ability to access health services and morbidity outcomes. They find that the policy change improved access and reduced the probability of sickness in a way that was particularly beneficial to the poor. Although the challenge of maintaining service quality remains, aggregate benefits are estimated to be significantly larger than the estimated shortfalls from the abolition of user fees.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Public Health Promotion,Pharmaceuticals&Pharmacoeconomics,Health Systems Development&Reform,Housing&Human Habitats,Health Systems Development&Reform,Housing&Human Habitats,Pharmaceuticals&Pharmacoeconomics,Poverty Assessment,Health Monitoring&Evaluation

The impact of property rights on households'investment, risk coping, and policy preferences : evidence from China

Even though it is widely recognized that giving farmers more secure land rights may increase agricultural investment, scholars contend that, in the case of China, such a policy might undermine the function of land as a social safety net and, as a consequence, not be sustainable or command broad support. Data from three provinces, one of which had adopted a policy to increase security of tenure in advance of the others, suggest that greater tenure security, especially if combined with transferability of land, had a positive impact on agricultural investment and, within the time frame considered, led neither to an increase in inequality of land distribution nor a reduction in households'ability to cope with exogenous shocks. Household support for more secure property rights is increased by their access to other insurance mechanisms, suggesting some role of land as a safety net. At the same time, past exposure to this type of land right has a much larger impact quantitatively, suggesting that a large part of the resistance to changed property rights arrangements disappears as household familiarity with such rights increases.Real Estate Development,Environmental Economics&Policies,Land and Real Estate Development,Municipal Housing and Land,Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Municipal Housing and Land,Land and Real Estate Development,Real Estate Development,Banks&Banking Reform

Land rental markets in the process of rural structural transformation : productivity and equity impacts in China

The importance of land rental for overall economic development has long been recognized in theory, yet empirical evidence on the productivity and equity impacts of such markets and the extent to which they realize their potential has been scant. Representative data from China's nine most important agricultural provinces illustrate the impact of rental markets on households'economic strategies and welfare, and the productivity of land use at the plot level. Although there are positive impacts in each of these dimensions, transaction costs constrain participation by many producers, thus preventing rental markets from attaining their full potential. The paper identifies factors that increase transaction costs and provides a rough estimate of the productivity and equity impacts of removing them.Banks&Banking Reform,Political Economy,Economic Theory&Research,Rural Development Knowledge&Information Systems,Labor Policies

Land institutions and land markets

In agrarian societies land serves as the main means not only for generating a livelihood but often also for accumulating wealth and transferring it between generations. How land rights are assigned therefore determines households'ability to generate subsistence and income, their social and economic status (and in many cases their collective identity), their incentive to exert nonobservable effort and make investments, and often their ability to access financial markets or to make arrangements for smoothing consumption and income. With imperfections in other markets, the institutions governing the allocation of land rights and the functioning of land markets will have implications for overall efficiency as well as equity. The authors examine how property rights in land evolve from a situation of land abundance. They discuss factors affecting the costs and benefits of individual land rights and highlight the implications of tenure security for investment incentives. They also review factors affecting participation in land sales and rental markets, particularly the characteristics of the agricultural production process, labor supervision cost, credit access, the risk characteristics of an individual's asset portfolio, and the transaction costs associated with market participation. These factors will affect land sales and rental markets differently. Removing obstacles to the smooth functioning of land rental markets and taking measures to enhance potential tenants'endowments and bargaining power can significantly increase both the welfare of the poor and the overall efficiency of resource allocation. Drawing on their conceptual discussion, the authors draw policy conclusions about the transition from communal to individual and more formal land rights, steps that might be taken to improve the functioning of land sales and rental markets, and the scope for redistributive land reform.Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Labor Policies,Municipal Housing and Land,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Housing and Land,Economic Theory&Research,Real Estate Development

Long-term Effects of Land Reform on Human Capital Accumulation: Evidence from West Bengal

We use data on inter-generational gains in educational attainment by some 500,000 individuals in 200 West Bengal villages to explore gender-differentiated impacts of land reform on human capital accumulation at the individual level. While there are significant gains (of about 0.3 years for males) in the immediate post-reform generation, their magnitude pales in comparison to second-generation effects of between 0.85 and 1.2 years that appear irrespectively of the land reform modality. Moreover, there are possibly significant spillover benefits on villagers who did not directly benefit from reform. Placebo tests and alternative specifications support robustness of the results. By contrast, levels of beneficiary productivity and welfare remain far below average, something that could likely be avoided if land reform beneficiaries would receive full ownership rights.rather than being recognized as permanent share tenants and if restrictions on transferability of land were abandoned.India, land reform, long-term effects, human capital