IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/nccewp/274103.html

Land Ownership and Irrigation on American Indian Reservations

Author

Listed:
  • Ge, Muyang
  • Edwards, Eric C.
  • Akhundjanov, Sherzod, B.

Abstract

American Indian reservations are often characterized by low income and high rates of poverty relative to adjacent non-reservation land. To understand the role institutions governing land ownership play in these outcomes, we examine agricultural land use and irrigation on parcels on and adjacent to the Uintah-Ouray Indian Reservation in eastern Utah. Land within the reservation is held in trust by the federal government and has significant restrictions on its use and development. We predict that this land will see lower investment in irrigation and therefore lower agricultural productivity. We use the exogenous allocation boundaries of a 1905 land allotment as a natural experiment, employing both a sharp and a fuzzy regression discontinuity (RD) design to explore how land ownership has affected agricultural land use, irrigation levels, and irrigation investment. Our results suggest that the original allocations provided land of similar quality across the border. Despite this, tribal lands are around 18 percentage points less likely to be irrigated today, and conditional on being irrigated, tribal land has a 31 percentage point lower rate of capital-intensive sprinkler irrigation. Tribal land is also less likely to grow high-value crops. These results suggest that trust ownership creates significant barriers to the acquisition of capital for agricultural investment, and helps explain lagging agricultural development on reservations.

Suggested Citation

  • Ge, Muyang & Edwards, Eric C. & Akhundjanov, Sherzod, B., "undated". "Land Ownership and Irrigation on American Indian Reservations," CEnREP Working Papers 274103, North Carolina State University, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:nccewp:274103
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.274103
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/274103/files/WP-2018-017.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.274103?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lori Lynch & Sabrina J. Lovell, 2003. "Combining Spatial and Survey Data to Explain Participation in Agricultural Land reservation Programs," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 79(2), pages 259-276.
    2. David Card & Laura Giuliano, 2016. "Can Tracking Raise the Test Scores of High-Ability Minority Students?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(10), pages 2783-2816, October.
    3. Terry L. Anderson & Dominic P. Parker, 2008. "Sovereignty, Credible Commitments, and Economic Prosperity on American Indian Reservations," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(4), pages 641-666, November.
    4. Alchian, Armen A. & Demsetz, Harold, 1973. "The Property Right Paradigm," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 33(1), pages 16-27, March.
    5. Patrick Bayer & Fernando Ferreira & Robert McMillan, 2007. "A Unified Framework for Measuring Preferences for Schools and Neighborhoods," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(4), pages 588-638, August.
    6. Sebastian Calonico & Matias D. Cattaneo & Rocio Titiunik, 2014. "Robust Nonparametric Confidence Intervals for Regression‐Discontinuity Designs," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82, pages 2295-2326, November.
    7. Goldberger, Arthur S, 1972. "Structural Equation Methods in the Social Sciences," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 40(6), pages 979-1001, November.
    8. Melissa Dell, 2015. "Trafficking Networks and the Mexican Drug War," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(6), pages 1738-1779, June.
    9. Anderson, Terry L & Lueck, Dean, 1992. "Land Tenure and Agricultural Productivity on Indian Reservations," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(2), pages 427-454, October.
    10. David S. Lee & Thomas Lemieux, 2010. "Regression Discontinuity Designs in Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(2), pages 281-355, June.
    11. McCrary, Justin, 2008. "Manipulation of the running variable in the regression discontinuity design: A density test," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 698-714, February.
    12. Yao Pan & Stephen C Smith & Munshi Sulaiman, 2018. "Agricultural Extension and Technology Adoption for Food Security: Evidence from Uganda," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1012-1031.
    13. Sebastian Calonico & Matias D. Cattaneo & Rocío Titiunik, 2015. "Optimal Data-Driven Regression Discontinuity Plots," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 110(512), pages 1753-1769, December.
    14. Grout, Cyrus A. & Jaeger, William K. & Plantinga, Andrew J., 2011. "Land-use regulations and property values in Portland, Oregon: A regression discontinuity design approach," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 98-107, March.
    15. Melissa Dell, 2010. "The Persistent Effects of Peru's Mining Mita," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(6), pages 1863-1903, November.
    16. van der Klaauw, Wilbert, 1997. "A Regression-Discontinuity Evaluation of the Effect of Financial Aid Offers on College Enrollment," Working Papers 97-10, C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University.
    17. Matthew A. Turner & Andrew Haughwout & Wilbert van der Klaauw, 2014. "Land Use Regulation and Welfare," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(4), pages 1341-1403, July.
    18. Ben Dachis & Gilles Duranton & Matthew A. Turner, 2012. "The effects of land transfer taxes on real estate markets: evidence from a natural experiment in Toronto," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 12(2), pages 327-354, March.
    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)

    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. Muyang Ge & Eric C. Edwards & Sherzod B. Akhundjanov, 2020. "Irrigation Investment on an American Indian Reservation," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(4), pages 1083-1104, August.
    2. Zeng, Shibo & Zhang, Yaxin & Jin, Gui, 2025. "Can urban low-carbon transformation affect the prices of its industrial land? An empirical study based on spatial regression discontinuity," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    3. Mellace, Giovanni & Ventura, Marco, 2019. "Intended and unintended effects of public incentives for innovation. Quasi-experimental evidence from Italy," Discussion Papers on Economics 9/2019, University of Southern Denmark, Department of Economics.
    4. Quaresima Federico & Santolini Raffaella & Fiorillo Fabio, 2020. "Political affiliation in post-parliamentary careers in Italian public enterprises," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 21(1), pages 35-64, April.
    5. Panos Sousounis & Gauthier Lanot, 2022. "Minimum Wage Effects on Reservation Wages," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 43(3), pages 415-439, December.
    6. Crespo Cristian, 2020. "Beyond Manipulation: Administrative Sorting in Regression Discontinuity Designs," Journal of Causal Inference, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 164-181, January.
    7. Taneesha Datta, 2025. "Political representation and judicial outcomes: Eidence from India," CSAE Working Paper Series 2025-11, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    8. Nene Oumou & Jonathan Goyette, 2016. "Can microcredit impact the activity of small and medium enterprises? New evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design in Panama," Cahiers de recherche 16-05, Departement d'économique de l'École de gestion à l'Université de Sherbrooke.
    9. Blaise Melly & Rafael Lalive, 2020. "Estimation, Inference, and Interpretation in the Regression Discontinuity Design," Diskussionsschriften dp2016, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.
    10. Vanessa Cirulli & Giuliano Resce & Marco Ventura, 2024. "Co-payment exemption and healthcare consumption: quasi-experimental evidence from Italy," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 67(1), pages 355-380, July.
    11. Makkar, Karan, 2023. "Defector Politicians and Economic Growth: Evidence from India," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    12. Pastore, Chiara & Jones, Andrew M., 2023. "Human capital consequences of missing out on a grammar school education," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    13. Ivan A Canay & Vishal Kamat, 2018. "Approximate Permutation Tests and Induced Order Statistics in the Regression Discontinuity Design," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(3), pages 1577-1608.
    14. Fusejima, Koki & Ishihara, Takuya & Sawada, Masayuki, 2025. "A unified test for regression discontinuity designs," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 251(C).
    15. Jin-young Choi & Myoung-jae Lee, 2017. "Regression discontinuity: review with extensions," Statistical Papers, Springer, vol. 58(4), pages 1217-1246, December.
    16. Federico Quaresima & Fabio Fiorillo & Raffaella Santolini, 2018. "Does Political Affiliation Matter On Post-Parliamentary Careers In The Boards Of Public Enterprises?," Working Papers 429, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
    17. Costa-Font, Joan & Knapp, Martin & Vilaplana-Prieto, Cristina, 2023. "The ‘welcomed lockdown’ hypothesis? Mental wellbeing and mobility restrictions," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 115323, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Gómez-Antonio, Miguel & del Moral Arce, Ignacio & Hortas-Rico, Miriam, 2022. "Are VAT reforms an effective tool for promoting culture? A quasi-experiment in Spain," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 44(5), pages 1016-1040.
    19. Belloy, Lauriane & Candau, Fabien, 2025. "Promoting social housing : Insights from redevelopment policies in Paris," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    20. Michael Hillebrecht & Stefan Klonner & Rainer Sauerborn & Alie Sié & Aurélia Souares, 2021. "The Demand for Health Insurance in a Poor Economy: Evidence from Burkina Faso," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 69(4), pages 1273-1300.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    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:ags:nccewp:274103. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dancsus.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.