IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/regeco/v70y2018icp246-257.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Urbanization and land property rights

Author

Listed:
  • Cai, Yongyang
  • Selod, Harris
  • Steinbuks, Jevgenijs

Abstract

We analyze the joint dynamics of land property rights and urbanization, a key yet underexplored relation that underpins the process of economic development. Using a dynamic stochastic model of urbanization with endogenous demand for property rights over land use, we demonstrate that the costly provision of those rights may result in both residential informality that can persist over time and suboptimal urbanization whereby cities are too small and insufficiently productive. In developing countries, because land administrations in charge of issuing titles are difficult to reform, achieving the second best may require acceptance of some level of informality in spite of the negative externalities stemming from informal land tenure and informal settlements. This may not be easily implemented as urban elites may favor overall welfare-reducing policies that over-evict informal dwellers.

Suggested Citation

  • Cai, Yongyang & Selod, Harris & Steinbuks, Jevgenijs, 2018. "Urbanization and land property rights," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 246-257.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:regeco:v:70:y:2018:i:c:p:246-257
    DOI: 10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2018.04.007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166046217301655
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2018.04.007?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. Alain Durand Lasserve & Harris Selod, 2009. "The Formalization of Urban Land Tenure in Developing Countries," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) hal-00813117, HAL.
    2. Fujita,Masahisa, 1991. "Urban Economic Theory," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521396455.
    3. Sonin, Konstantin, 2003. "Why the rich may favor poor protection of property rights," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 715-731, December.
    4. De Long, J Bradford & Shleifer, Andrei, 1993. "Princes and Merchants: European City Growth before the Industrial Revolution," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(2), pages 671-702, October.
    5. Jan K. Brueckner & Harris Selod, 2009. "A Theory of Urban Squatting and Land-Tenure Formalization in Developing Countries," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 28-51, February.
    6. Brueckner, Jan K. & Thisse, Jacques-Francois & Zenou, Yves, 1999. "Why is central Paris rich and downtown Detroit poor?: An amenity-based theory," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 91-107, January.
    7. Harris Selod & Lara Tobin, 2018. "The spatial sorting of informal dwellers in cities in developing countries: Theory and evidence," Working Papers halshs-01703178, HAL.
    8. Jimenez, Emmanuel, 1985. "Urban squatting and community organization in developing countries," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 69-92, June.
    9. Alves, Guillermo, 2021. "Slum growth in Brazilian cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    10. Carrington, William J & Detragiache, Enrica & Vishwanath, Tara, 1996. "Migration with Endogenous Moving Costs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(4), pages 909-930, September.
    11. Mckenzie, David & Rapoport, Hillel, 2007. "Network effects and the dynamics of migration and inequality: Theory and evidence from Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 1-24, September.
    12. Richard Bellman, 1957. "On a Dynamic Programming Approach to the Caterer Problem--I," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 3(3), pages 270-278, April.
    13. Giulietti, Corrado & Wahba, Jackline & Zenou, Yves, 2018. "Strong versus weak ties in migration," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 111-137.
    14. Gary Richardson & Dan Bogart, 2008. "Institutional Adaptability and Economic Development: The Property Rights Revolution in Britain, 1700 to 1830," NBER Working Papers 13757, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Maskin, Eric & Tirole, Jean, 2001. "Markov Perfect Equilibrium: I. Observable Actions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 100(2), pages 191-219, October.
    16. Duncan Black and Vernon Henderson, 1997. "A Theory of Urban Growth," Working Papers 97-1, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    17. Rosenthal, Stuart S. & Strange, William C., 2004. "Evidence on the nature and sources of agglomeration economies," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 49, pages 2119-2171, Elsevier.
    18. Nilopa Shah, 2014. "Squatting On Government Land," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 114-136, January.
    19. Alain Durand-Lasserve & Maÿlis Durand-Lasserve & Harris Selod, 2015. "Land Delivery Systems in West African Cities : The Example of Bamako, Mali [Le système d'approvisionnement en terres dans les villes d'Afrique de l'Ouest]," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 21613, December.
    20. Brueckner, Jan K., 2013. "Urban squatting with rent-seeking organizers," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 561-569.
    21. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James Robinson, 2005. "The Rise of Europe: Atlantic Trade, Institutional Change, and Economic Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 546-579, June.
    22. Diego Puga, 2010. "The Magnitude And Causes Of Agglomeration Economies," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1), pages 203-219, February.
    23. Chun-Chung Au & J. Vernon Henderson, 2006. "Are Chinese Cities Too Small?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(3), pages 549-576.
    24. Bogart, Dan & Richardson, Gary, 2009. "Making property productive: reorganizing rights to real and equitable estates in Britain, 1660–1830," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(1), pages 3-30, April.
    25. Turnbull, Geoffrey K., 2008. "Squatting, eviction and development," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 1-15, January.
    26. Shohei Nakamura, 2017. "Does slum formalisation without title provision stimulate housing improvement? A case of slum declaration in Pune, India," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(7), pages 1715-1735, May.
    27. Tiago Cavalcanti & Daniel Da Mata & Marcelo Santos, 2019. "On the Determinants of Slum Formation," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(621), pages 1971-1991.
    28. Matthew E. Kahn, 2010. "New Evidence on Trends in the Cost of Urban Agglomeration," NBER Chapters, in: Agglomeration Economics, pages 339-354, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    29. Michael Spence & Patricia Clarke Annez & Robert M. Buckley, 2009. "Urbanization and Growth : Commission on Growth and Development," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2582, December.
    30. Edward L. Glaeser & Bruce Sacerdote, 1999. "Why Is There More Crime in Cities?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(S6), pages 225-258, December.
    31. Duncan Black & Vernon Henderson, 1999. "A Theory of Urban Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(2), pages 252-284, April.
    32. Henderson, Vernon & Venables, Anthony J. & Regan, Tanner & Samsonov, Ilia, 2016. "Building functional cities," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 66832, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    33. Lall, Somik V. & Selod, Harris & Shalizi, Zmarak, 2006. "Rural-urban migration in developing countries : a survey of theoretical predictions and empirical findings," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3915, The World Bank.
    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. M. Picard,Pierre & Selod,Harris, 2020. "Customary Land Conversion and the Formation of the African City," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9192, The World Bank.
    2. Alves, Guillermo, 2021. "Slum growth in Brazilian cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    3. Guedes, Ricardo & Iachan, Felipe S. & Sant’Anna, Marcelo, 2023. "Housing supply in the presence of informality," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    4. Munshifwa, Ephraim Kabunda, 2023. "Institutional analysis and informal urban settlements: A proposition for a new institutionalist grounded property rights perspective," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    5. Letrouit,Lucie Michele Maya & Selod,Harris, 2020. "Trust or Property Rights ? Can Trusted Relationships Substitute for Costly Land Registration in West African Cities ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9310, The World Bank.
    6. Per G. Fredriksson & Satyendra Kumar Gupta & Weihua Zhao & Jim R. Wollscheid, 2023. "Legal heritage and urban slums," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(1), pages 236-252, January.
    7. Picard, Pierre M. & Selod, Harris, 2023. "Customary Land Conversion in African Cities," IZA Discussion Papers 16462, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Yang, Chen & Qian, Zhu, 2022. "The complexity of property rights embedded in the rural-to-urban resettlement of China: A case of Hangzhou," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    9. Yongyang Cai & William Brock & Anastasios Xepapadeas & Kenneth Judd, 2019. "Climate Policy under Spatial Heat Transport: Cooperative and Noncooperative Regional Outcomes," Papers 1909.04009, arXiv.org.
    10. Libang Ma & Meimei Chen & Xinglong Che & Fang Fang, 2019. "Research on Population-Land-Industry Relationship Pattern in Underdeveloped Regions: Gansu Province of Western China as an Example," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-19, April.
    11. Brueckner, Jan K. & Rabe, Claus & Selod, Harris, 2019. "Backyarding: Theory and evidence for South Africa," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    12. Celhay, Pablo & Undurraga, Raimundo, 2022. "Location Preferences and Slums Formation: Evidence from a Panel of Residence Histories," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    13. Yujun Zhou & Jingming Liu & Xiang Kang, 2022. "Market-Driven Rural Construction—A Case Study of Fuhong Town, Chengdu," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-19, May.

    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. Cai,Yongyang & Selod,Harris & Steinbuks,Jevgenijs, 2015. "Urbanization and property rights," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7486, The World Bank.
    2. Letrouit,Lucie Michele Maya & Selod,Harris, 2020. "Trust or Property Rights ? Can Trusted Relationships Substitute for Costly Land Registration in West African Cities ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9310, The World Bank.
    3. M. Picard,Pierre & Selod,Harris, 2020. "Customary Land Conversion and the Formation of the African City," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9192, The World Bank.
    4. Brueckner, Jan K. & Lall, Somik V., 2015. "Cities in Developing Countries," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 1399-1455, Elsevier.
    5. Brueckner, Jan K. & Mation, Lucas & Nadalin, Vanessa G., 2019. "Slums in Brazil: Where are they located, who lives in them, and do they ‘squeeze’ the formal housing market?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 48-60.
    6. Guedes, Ricardo & Iachan, Felipe S. & Sant’Anna, Marcelo, 2023. "Housing supply in the presence of informality," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    7. Harris Selod & Lara Tobin, 2018. "The spatial sorting of informal dwellers in cities in developing countries: Theory and evidence," Working Papers halshs-01703178, HAL.
    8. Brueckner, Jan K. & Rabe, Claus & Selod, Harris, 2019. "Backyarding: Theory and evidence for South Africa," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    9. Duranton, Gilles & Puga, Diego, 2014. "The Growth of Cities," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 5, pages 781-853, Elsevier.
    10. Gilles Duranton, 2007. "From cities to productivity and growth in developing countries," Working Papers tecipa-306, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    11. Picard, Pierre M. & Selod, Harris, 2023. "Customary Land Conversion in African Cities," IZA Discussion Papers 16462, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Duranton, Gilles & Puga, Diego, 2004. "Micro-foundations of urban agglomeration economies," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 48, pages 2063-2117, Elsevier.
    13. Chen, Jie & Zhou, Qian, 2017. "City size and urban labor productivity in China: New evidence from spatial city-level panel data analysis," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 165-178.
    14. Ignacio Navarro & Geoffrey Turnbull, 2014. "Property Rights and Urban Development: Initial Title Quality Matters Even When it No Longer Matters," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 1-22, July.
    15. Carl Gaigné & Jacques-François Thisse, 2013. "New Economic Geography and the City," Working Papers SMART 13-02, INRAE UMR SMART.
    16. Oshiro, Jun & Sato, Yasuhiro, 2021. "Industrial structure in urban accounting," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    17. Frederick van der Ploeg & Steven Poelhekke, 2008. "Globalization and the rise of mega-cities in the developing world," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 1(3), pages 477-501.
    18. Jedwab, Remi & Vollrath, Dietrich, 2015. "Urbanization without growth in historical perspective," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1-21.
    19. Jedwab, Remi & Christiaensen, Luc & Gindelsky, Marina, 2017. "Demography, urbanization and development: Rural push, urban pull and…urban push?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 6-16.
    20. Faberman, R. Jason & Freedman, Matthew, 2016. "The urban density premium across establishments," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 71-84.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Agglomeration effects; Residential informality; Land property rights; Urbanization dynamics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O43 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Institutions and Growth
    • P14 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Property Rights
    • R14 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Land Use Patterns

    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:eee:regeco:v:70:y:2018:i:c:p:246-257. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/regec .

    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.