IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/deveco/v96y2011i1p66-78.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Land tenure differences and investment in land improvement measures: Theoretical and empirical analyses

Author

Listed:
  • Abdulai, Awudu
  • Owusu, Victor
  • Goetz, Renan

Abstract

This article develops a theoretical framework to examine the relationship between land tenure arrangements and households' investment in soil-improving and conservation measures. It then analyzes this relationship with a multivariate probit model based on detailed plot-level data from 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 arrangements. The theoretical analysis and empirical results generally reveal that land tenure differences significantly influence farmers' decisions to invest in land-improving and conservation measures. The findings also show that tenure security does affect farm productivity.

Suggested Citation

  • Abdulai, Awudu & Owusu, Victor & Goetz, Renan, 2011. "Land tenure differences and investment in land improvement measures: Theoretical and empirical analyses," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 66-78, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:deveco:v:96:y:2011:i:1:p:66-78
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304387810000854
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    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. 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.
    2. Besley, Timothy & Ghatak, Maitreesh, 2010. "Property Rights and Economic Development," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4525-4595, Elsevier.
    3. Otsuka, Keijiro & Quisumbing, Agnes R. & Payongayong, Ellen & Aidoo, J.B., 2003. "Land tenure and the management of land and trees: the case of customary land tenure areas of Ghana," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 8(1), pages 77-104, February.
    4. Quisumbing, Agnes R & Payongayong, Ellen & Aidoo, J B & Otsuka, Keijiro, 2001. "Women's Land Rights in the Transition to Individualized Ownership: Implications for Tree-Resource Management in Western Ghana," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 50(1), pages 157-181, October.
    5. Hanan G. Jacoby & Ghazala Mansuri, 2008. "Land Tenancy and Non-Contractible Investment in Rural Pakistan," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(3), pages 763-788.
    6. Banerjee, Abhijit V. & Ghatak, Maitreesh, 2004. "Eviction threats and investment incentives," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 469-488, August.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. Klaus Deininger & Daniel Ayalew Ali, 2008. "Do Overlapping Land Rights Reduce Agricultural Investment? Evidence from Uganda," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 90(4), pages 869-882.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Paul J. Gertler & Maitreesh Ghatak, 2002. "Empowerment and Efficiency: Tenancy Reform in West Bengal," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(2), pages 239-280, April.
    13. Jacoby, Hanan G. & Mansuri, Ghazala, 2009. "Incentives, supervision, and sharecropper productivity," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 232-241, March.
    14. 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.
    15. Brasselle, Anne-Sophie & Gaspart, Frederic & Platteau, Jean-Philippe, 2002. "Land tenure security and investment incentives: puzzling evidence from Burkina Faso," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 373-418, April.
    16. Hanan G. Jacoby & Guo Li & Scott Rozelle, 2002. "Hazards of Expropriation: Tenure Insecurity and Investment in Rural China," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1420-1447, December.
    17. Davidson, Russell & MacKinnon, James G., 1993. "Estimation and Inference in Econometrics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195060119.
    18. Otsuka, Keijiro & Place, Frank, 2001. "Land tenure and natural resource management: a comparative study of agrarian communities in Africa and Asia," Food policy statements 34, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    19. Richard W. Blundell & Richard J. Smith, 1989. "Estimation in a Class of Simultaneous Equation Limited Dependent Variable Models," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 56(1), pages 37-57.
    20. Ray Y. Gildea, Jr., 1964. "Culture and Land Tenure in Ghana," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(1), pages 102-104.
    21. Quisumbing, Agnes R. & Payongayong, Ellen & Aidoo, J. B. & Otsuka, Keijiro, 1999. "Women's land rights in the transition to individualized ownership," FCND discussion papers 58, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    22. Frank Place & Peter Hazell, 1993. "Productivity Effects of Indigenous Land Tenure Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 75(1), pages 10-19.
    23. 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.
    24. Feder, Gershon & Feeny, David, 1991. "Land Tenure and Property Rights: Theory and Implications for Development Policy," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 5(1), pages 135-153, January.
    25. F. Place & K. Otsuka, 2002. "Land Tenure Systems and Their Impacts on Agricultural Investments and Productivity in Uganda," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(6), pages 105-128.
    26. 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)

    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. Abdulai, Awudu & Owusu, Victor & Goetz, Renan, 2008. "Property rights and investment in agriculture: Evidence for Ghana," MPRA Paper 37046, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Tilman Br�ck, 2003. "Investment in Land, Tenure Security and Area Farmed in Northern Mozambique," HiCN Working Papers 01, Households in Conflict Network.
    3. Nida Akram & Muhammad Waqar Akram & Hongshu Wang & Ayesha Mehmood, 2019. "Does Land Tenure Systems Affect Sustainable Agricultural Development?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(14), pages 1-15, July.
    4. Bambio, Yiriyibin & Bouayad Agha, Salima, 2018. "Land tenure security and investment: Does strength of land right really matter in rural Burkina Faso?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 130-147.
    5. Fenske, James, 2011. "Land tenure and investment incentives: Evidence from West Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(2), pages 137-156, July.
    6. Ali, Daniel Ayalew & Deininger, Klaus & Goldstein, Markus, 2014. "Environmental and gender impacts of land tenure regularization in Africa: Pilot evidence from Rwanda," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 262-275.
    7. Caio Piza & Mauricio José Serpa Barros de Moura, 2011. "How Does Land Title Affect Access to Credit? Empirical Evidence from an Emerging Economy," Working Paper Series 2211, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    8. Muhammad Waqar Akram & Nida Akram & Wang Hongshu & Shahla Andleeb & Khalil ur Rehman & Umair Kashif & Ayesha Mehmood, 2019. "Impact of Land Use Rights on the Investment and Efficiency of Organic Farming," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-18, December.
    9. Alain Desdoigts & Hugues Kouassi Kouadio, 2013. "Deforestation, Migration, Land Appropriation and Reforms: Rural resilience against the backdrop of the Malthusian crisis in Ivory Coast," Erudite Working Paper 2013-01, Erudite.
    10. Reshmi Kumari & Yuko Nakano, 2016. "Does land lease tenure insecurity cause decreased productivity and investment in the sugar industry? Evidence from Fiji," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 60(3), pages 406-421, July.
    11. Carol Newman & Finn Tarp & Katleen van den Broeck, 2015. "Property Rights and Productivity: The Case of Joint Land Titling in Vietnam," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 91(1), pages 91-105.
    12. KOUADIO, Hugues & DESDOIGTS, Alain, 2012. "Déforestation, migrations, saturation et réformes foncières: La Côte d’Ivoire entre résilience rurale et litiges fonciers [Deforestation, migration, saturation and land reforms: Côte d'Ivoire betwe," MPRA Paper 49938, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Thomas Vendryes, 2014. "Peasants Against Private Property Rights: A Review Of The Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(5), pages 971-995, December.
    14. Jérémie GIGNOUX & Karen MACOURS & Liam WREN-LEWIS, 2015. "Impact of land administration programs on agricultural productivity and rural development: existing evidence, challenges and new approaches," Review of Agricultural and Environmental Studies - Revue d'Etudes en Agriculture et Environnement, INRA Department of Economics, vol. 96(3), pages 467-498.
    15. Markussen, Thomas & Tarp, Finn, 2011. "Political connections and investment in rural Vietnam," 2011 ASAE 7th International Conference, October 13-15, Hanoi, Vietnam 291321, Asian Society of Agricultural Economists (ASAE).
    16. Asaaga, Festus A. & Hirons, Mark A. & Malhi, Yadvinder, 2020. "Questioning the link between tenure security and sustainable land management in cocoa landscapes in Ghana," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    17. Kimlong Chheng & Budy P. Resosudarmo, 2021. "Land property rights and food insecurity in rural Cambodia," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(6), pages 1911-1929, December.
    18. Petracco, Carly K. & Pender, John L., 2009. "Evaluating the Impact of Land Tenure and Titling on Access to Credit in Uganda," 2009 Conference, August 16-22, 2009, Beijing, China 51899, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    19. 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.
    20. Kabubo-Mariara, Jane, 2007. "Land conservation and tenure security in Kenya: Boserup's hypothesis revisited," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 25-35, October.

    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:deveco:v:96:y:2011:i:1:p:66-78. 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/devec .

    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.