IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/13563.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The efficiency of land-use in a developing city: traditional vs modern tenure systems in Kampala, Uganda

Author

Listed:
  • Venables, Anthony
  • Bird, Julia

Abstract

Land rights and tenure systems are an important factor behind poor housing and inefficient land-use in developing country cities. In Kampala, Uganda, four systems of land tenure coexist, allowing a detailed study of the effects of these on household and firm location decisions. Spatially disaggregated data across the city suggest that the presence of a traditional land tenure system (called mailo) skews land-use towards informal housing and away from productive activities. Using a structural model of the city we show that this due to mailo having a positive value for occupants of informal housing, attributable to mailo-specific amenity benefits and/ or rent caps. We use the model to investigate the effect of converting all mailo land in the city to leasehold. Despite direct loss of amenity experienced by mailo residents, aggregate city income may rise substantially because of more efficient land-use. Manufacturing firms move into formerly mailo areas and form new clusters of activity. This increases urban wages, particularly among the low skilled, and raises aggregate urban real incomes by 2% in the absence of localisation economies and as much as 6.7% in the presence of such economies of scale.

Suggested Citation

  • Venables, Anthony & Bird, Julia, 2019. "The efficiency of land-use in a developing city: traditional vs modern tenure systems in Kampala, Uganda," CEPR Discussion Papers 13563, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13563
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP13563
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    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. Stephen J. Redding & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2017. "Quantitative Spatial Economics," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 9(1), pages 21-58, September.
    2. Gabriel M. Ahlfeldt & Stephen J. Redding & Daniel M. Sturm & Nikolaus Wolf, 2015. "The Economics of Density: Evidence From the Berlin Wall," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83, pages 2127-2189, November.
    3. Klaus Desmet & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2013. "Urban Accounting and Welfare," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(6), pages 2296-2327, October.
    4. Stuart S. Rosenthal & William C. Strange, 2003. "Geography, Industrial Organization, and Agglomeration," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(2), pages 377-393, May.
    5. Enrico Moretti, 2014. "Local Economic Development, Agglomeration Economies, and the Big Push: 100 Years of Evidence from the Tennessee Valley Authority," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(1), pages 275-331.
    6. Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), 2015. "Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 5, number 5.
    7. 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.
    8. Benjamin Marx & Thomas Stoker & Tavneet Suri, 2013. "The Economics of Slums in the Developing World," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(4), pages 187-210, Fall.
    9. Jonathan Eaton & Samuel Kortum, 2002. "Technology, Geography, and Trade," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(5), pages 1741-1779, September.
    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. Henderson, J. Vernon & Liu, Vivian, 2023. "Urban land markets and city development: Sub-Saharan Africa," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119388, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Gharad Bryan & Edward Glaeser & Nick Tsivanidis, 2019. "Cities in the Developing World," NBER Working Papers 26390, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    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. Bird, Julia & Venables, Anthony J., 2020. "Land tenure and land-use in a developing city: A quantitative spatial model applied to Kampala, Uganda," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    2. Stephan Heblich & Stephen J Redding & Daniel M Sturm, 2020. "The Making of the Modern Metropolis: Evidence from London," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(4), pages 2059-2133.
    3. Stephen J. Redding, 2021. "Suburbanization in the United States 1970-2010," Working Papers 286, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    4. Rivera-Padilla, Alberto, 2021. "Slums, allocation of talent, and barriers to urbanization," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    5. Stephen J. Redding & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2017. "Quantitative Spatial Economics," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 9(1), pages 21-58, September.
    6. Farid Farrokhi, 2021. "Skill, Agglomeration, And Inequality In The Spatial Economy," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 62(2), pages 671-721, May.
    7. Blouri, Yashar & Ehrlich, Maximilian V., 2020. "On the optimal design of place-based policies: A structural evaluation of EU regional transfers," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    8. Redding, Stephen, 2020. "Trade and Geography," CEPR Discussion Papers 15268, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Behrens, Kristian & Mion, Giordano & Murata, Yasusada & Suedekum, Jens, 2017. "Spatial frictions," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 40-70.
    10. Rodrigo Adão & Costas Arkolakis & Federico Esposito, 2019. "General Equilibrium Effects in Space: Theory and Measurement," NBER Working Papers 25544, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Desmet, Klaus & Henderson, J. Vernon, 2015. "The Geography of Development Within 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 1457-1517, Elsevier.
    12. Dávid Krisztián Nagy, 2021. "Quantitative Economic Geography Meets History: Questions, Answers and Challenges," Working Papers 1249, Barcelona School of Economics.
    13. Gilles Duranton & Diego Puga, 2020. "The Economics of Urban Density," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(3), pages 3-26, Summer.
    14. Redding, Stephen & Nakajima, Kentaro & Miyauchi, Yuhei, 2021. "Consumption access and agglomeration: evidence from smartphone data," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 114353, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Sturm,Daniel Marbod & Takeda,Kohei & Venables,Anthony J., 2022. "Exploring the Urban Model : Employment, Housing, and Infrastructure," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9910, The World Bank.
    16. Krebs, Oliver & Pflüger, Michael, 2023. "On the road (again): Commuting and local employment elasticities in Germany," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    17. Gerard H Dericks & Hans R A Koster, 2021. "The billion pound drop: the Blitz and agglomeration economies in London [The economics of density: evidence from the Berlin wall]," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 21(6), pages 869-897.
    18. Jaworski, Taylor, 2020. "Specification and structure in economic history," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    19. Rodrigo Ad'o & Costas Arkolakis & Federico Esp'sito, 2019. "Spatial Linkages, Global Shocks, and Local Labor Markets: Theory and Evidence," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2163, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    20. Stephen J. Redding, 2022. "Suburbanization in the USA, 1970–2010," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(S1), pages 110-136, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Urban; Land-tenure; Land-use; Customary; Uganda;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • R3 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location
    • R52 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Land Use and Other Regulations

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cpr:ceprdp:13563. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.