Property rights and investment in agriculture: Evidence for Ghana
Abstract
This article develops a theoretical framework to examine the relationship between land tenure agreements and households’ investment in land improvement and conservation measures. It then analyzes this relationship with a multivariate probit model based on a survey data from a sample of 560 plots belonging to 246 farmers from 6 villages in the Brong-Ahafo region of Ghana. A major hypothesis tested is that investment in productivity enhancing and conservation techniques are influenced by land tenure systems. The theoretical analysis and empirical results generally reveal that land tenure differences significantly influence farmers’ decisions to invest in land improvement and conservation measures. Furthermore, reduced-form productivity regressions show that tenure differences do affect land productivity.Download Info
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.Bibliographic Info
Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number 37046.Length:
Date of creation: Jun 2008
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:37046
Contact details of provider:
Postal: Schackstr. 4, D-80539 Munich, Germany
Phone: +49-(0)89-2180-2219
Fax: +49-(0)89-2180-3900
Web page: http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de
More information through EDIRC
Related research
Keywords: Land tenure; property rights; investment; optimal control; multivariate probit;Find related papers by JEL classification:
- O1 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
- O55 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Africa
- O13 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
- Q12 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets
References
References listed on IDEASPlease report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
- Blundell, Richard W & Smith, Richard J, 1989. "Estimation in a Class of Simultaneous Equation Limited Dependent Variable Models," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(1), pages 37-57, January.
- Carter, Michael R. & Olinto, Pedro, 2000.
"Getting Institutions 'Right' for Whom: Credit Constraints and the Impact of Property Rights on the Quantity and Compostiton of Investment,"
Staff Paper Series
433, University of Wisconsin, Agricultural and Applied Economics.
- Michael R. Carter & Pedro Olinto, 2003. "Getting Institutions “Right” for Whom? Credit Constraints and the Impact of Property Rights on the Quantity and Composition of Investment," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 85(1), pages 173-186.
- MICHAEL R. CARTER & Pedro Olinto, 2000. "Getting Institutions 'Right' for Whom: Credit Constraints and the Impact of Property Rights on the Quantity and Compostiton of Investment," Wisconsin-Madison Agricultural and Applied Economics Staff Papers 433, Wisconsin-Madison Agricultural and Applied Economics Department.
- Marenya, Paswel P. & Barrett, Christopher B., 2007. "Household-level determinants of adoption of improved natural resources management practices among smallholder farmers in western Kenya," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 515-536, August.
- Davidson, Russell & MacKinnon, James G., 1993. "Estimation and Inference in Econometrics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195060119.
- Shaban, Radwan Ali, 1987. "Testing between Competing Models of Sharecropping," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(5), pages 893-920, October.
- Otsuka, Keijiro & Place, Frank, 2001. "Land tenure and natural resource management," Food policy statements 34, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
- Hausman, Jerry A, 1978. "Specification Tests in Econometrics," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(6), pages 1251-71, November.
- Ehui, Simeon K. & Hertel, Thomas W. & Preckel, Paul V., 1990. "Forest resource depletion, soil dynamics, and agricultural productivity in the tropics," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 136-154, March.
- Edward B. Barbier, 2004. "Explaining Agricultural Land Expansion and Deforestation in Developing Countries," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 86(5), pages 1347-1353.
- Feder, Gershon & Feeny, David, 1991. "Land Tenure and Property Rights: Theory and Implications for Development Policy," World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 5(1), pages 135-53, January.
- Markus Goldstein & Christopher Udry, 2008.
"The Profits of Power: Land Rights and Agricultural Investment in Ghana,"
Journal of Political Economy,
University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(6), pages 981-1022, December.
- Markus Goldstein & Christopher Udry, 2005. "The Profits of Power: Land Rights and Agricultural Investment in Ghana," Working Papers 929, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
- Jeff DeSimone, 2002. "Illegal Drug Use and Employment," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(4), pages 952-977, October.
- F. Place & K. Otsuka, 2002. "Land Tenure Systems and Their Impacts on Agricultural Investments and Productivity in Uganda," The Journal of Development Studies, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 38(6), pages 105-128.
- Rivers, Douglas & Vuong, Quang H., 1988. "Limited information estimators and exogeneity tests for simultaneous probit models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 347-366, November.
- Angelsen, Arild, 1999. "Agricultural expansion and deforestation: modelling the impact of population, market forces and property rights," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 185-218, February.
Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Fenske, James, 2011. "Land tenure and investment incentives: Evidence from West Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(2), pages 137-156, July.
Lists
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.Statistics
Access and download statisticsCorrections
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:37046For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Ekkehart Schlicht).
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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

