IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fpr/ifprid/1545.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Perceived land tenure security and rural transformation: Empirical evidence from Ghana:

Author

Listed:
  • Ghebru, Hosaena
  • Khan, Huma
  • Lambrecht, Isabel

Abstract

Tenure security is believed to be critical in spurring agricultural investment and productivity. Yet what improves or impedes tenure security is still poorly understood. Using household- and plot-level data from Ghana, this study analyzes the main factors associated with farmers’ perceived tenure security. Individually, farmers perceive greater tenure security on plots acquired via purchase or inheritance than on land allocated by traditional authorities. Collectively, however, perceived tenure security lessens in communities with more active land markets and economic vibrancy. Migrant households and women in polygamous households feel less secure about their tenure, while farmers with political connections are more confident about their tenure security.

Suggested Citation

  • Ghebru, Hosaena & Khan, Huma & Lambrecht, Isabel, 2016. "Perceived land tenure security and rural transformation: Empirical evidence from Ghana:," IFPRI discussion papers 1545, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    • Handle: RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1545
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://cdm15738.contentdm.oclc.org/utils/getfile/collection/p15738coll2/id/130495/filename/130706.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Peters, Pauline E., 2009. "Challenges in Land Tenure and Land Reform in Africa: Anthropological Contributions," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 1317-1325, August.
    3. repec:idb:brikps:79402 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Chris D. Arnot & Martin K. Luckert & Peter C. Boxall, 2011. "What Is Tenure Security? Conceptual Implications for Empirical Analysis," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 87(2), pages 297-311.
    5. Houssou, Nazaire & Diao, Xinshen & Cossar, Frances & Kolavalli, Shashidhara & Jimah, Kipo & Aboagye, Patrick Ohene, 2013. "Agricultural mechanization in Ghana: Is specialization in agricultural mechanization a viable business model?," GSSP working papers 30, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    6. 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.
    7. Ragasa, Catherine & Dankyi, Awere & Acheampong, Patricia & Wiredu, Alexander Nimo & Chapoto, Antony & Asamoah, Marian & Tripp, Robert, 2013. "Patterns of adoption of improved maize technologies in Ghana:," GSSP working papers 36, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    8. Deininger, Klaus & Jin, Songqing, 2006. "Tenure security and land-related investment: Evidence from Ethiopia," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(5), pages 1245-1277, July.
    9. J.-P. Colin & M. Ayouz, 2006. "The development of a land market? Insights from Côte d'Ivoire," Post-Print hal-00719280, HAL.
    10. Sjaastad, Espen & Bromley, Daniel W., 1997. "Indigenous land rights in sub-Saharan Africa: Appropriation, security and investment demand," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 549-562, January.
    11. Lambrecht, Isabel Brigitte, 2016. "“As a Husband I Will Love, Lead, and Provide.” Gendered Access to Land in Ghana," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 188-200.
    12. Frank Place & S. E. Migot-Adholla, 1998. "The Economic Effects of Land Registration on Smallholder Farms in Kenya: Evidence from Nyeri and Kakamega Districts," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 74(3), pages 360-373.
    13. Daniel Ayalew Ali & Stefan Dercon & Madhur Gautam, 2011. "Property rights in a very poor country: tenure insecurity and investment in Ethiopia," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 42(1), pages 75-86, January.
    14. Hosaena H. Ghebru & Stein T. Holden, 2015. "Reverse-Share-Tenancy and Agricultural Efficiency: Farm-Level Evidence from Ethiopia," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 24(1), pages 148-171.
    15. Gray, Leslie C. & Kevane, Michael, 2001. "Evolving Tenure Rights and Agricultural Intensification in Southwestern Burkina Faso," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 573-587, April.
    16. Nazaire Houssou & Xinshen Diao & Frances Cossar & Shashidhara Kolavalli & Kipo Jimah & Patrick Ohene Aboagye, 2013. "Agricultural Mechanization in Ghana: Is Specialized Agricultural Mechanization Service Provision a Viable Business Model?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1237-1244.
    17. 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.
    18. Fitsum Hagos & Stein Holden, 2006. "Tenure security, resource poverty, public programs, and household plot‐level conservation investments in the highlands of northern Ethiopia," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 34(2), pages 183-196, March.
    19. Lastarria-Cornhiel, Susana, 1997. "Impact of privatization on gender and property rights in Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 25(8), pages 1317-1333, August.
    20. Fred-Mensah, Ben K., 1999. "Capturing Ambiguities: Communal Conflict Management Alternative in Ghana," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 951-965, June.
    21. Rohini Pande & Christopher Udry, 2005. "Institutions and Development:A View from Below," Working Papers 928, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    22. Nin-Pratt, Alejandro & McBride, Linden, 2014. "Agricultural intensification in Ghana: Evaluating the optimist’s case for a Green Revolution," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 153-167.
    23. 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.
    24. Stein Holden & Hailu Yohannes, 2002. "Land Redistribution, Tenure Insecurity, and Intensity of Production: A Study of Farm Households in Southern Ethiopia," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 78(4), pages 573-590.
    25. Eliana La Ferrara & Annamaria Milazzo, 2017. "Customary Norms, Inheritance, and Human Capital: Evidence from a Reform of the Matrilineal System in Ghana," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 166-185, October.
    26. Deininger, Klaus & Hilhorst, Thea & Songwe, Vera, 2014. "Identifying and addressing land governance constraints to support intensification and land market operation: Evidence from 10 African countries," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 76-87.
    27. Hanan G. Jacoby & Bart Minten, 2007. "Is Land Titling in Sub-Saharan Africa Cost-Effective? Evidence from Madagascar," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 21(3), pages 461-485, June.
    28. Fenske, James, 2011. "Land tenure and investment incentives: Evidence from West Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(2), pages 137-156, July.
    29. 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.
    30. J. A. Bakang & C. J. Garforth, 1998. "Property rights and renewable natural resources degradation in North-Western Ghana," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(4), pages 501-514.
    31. La Ferrara, Eliana, 2007. "Descent rules and strategic transfers. Evidence from matrilineal groups in Ghana," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 280-301, July.
    32. Benjamin Linkow, 2016. "Causes and Consequences of Perceived Land Tenure Insecurity: Survey Evidence from Burkina Faso," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 92(2), pages 308-327.
    33. Wouterse, Fleur, 2010. "Internal migration and rural service provision in northern Ghana:," IFPRI discussion papers 952, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    34. Osama J. A. R. Abu Shair, 1997. "Privatization and Development," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-349-25374-6, March.
    35. Jean-Philippe Colin & Mourad Ayouz, 2006. "The Development of a Land Market? Insights from Côte d’Ivoire," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 82(3), pages 404-423.
    36. Place, Frank, 2009. "Land Tenure and Agricultural Productivity in Africa: A Comparative Analysis of the Economics Literature and Recent Policy Strategies and Reforms," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 1326-1336, August.
    37. J.-P. Colin & M. Ayouz, 2006. "The development of a land market? Insights from Côte d'Ivoire," Post-Print hal-00716385, HAL.
    38. 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.
    39. Lambrecht, Isabel & Asare, Sarah, 2015. "Smallholders and land tenure in Ghana: Aligning context, empirics, and policy:," IFPRI discussion papers 1492, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    40. Atwood, David A., 1990. "Land registration in Africa: The impact on agricultural production," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 659-671, May.
    41. 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.
    42. Alemu Mekonnen, 2009. "Tenure Security, Resource Endowments, and Tree Growing: Evidence from the Amhara Region of Ethiopia," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 85(2), pages 292-307.
    43. 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)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ghebru, Hosaena & Girmachew , Fikirte, 2017. "Scrutinizing The Status Quo: Rural Transformation And Land Tenure Security In Nigeria," Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security Policy Research Papers 264394, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Security (FSP).
    2. Edeh, Hyacinth O. & Mavrotas, George & Balana, Bedru B., 2022. "Land tenure security and preferences to dispute resolution pathways among landholders in Nigeria," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    3. Olagunju, Kehinde Oluseyi & Olagunju, Kehinde Ademola & Ogunniyi, Adebayo Isaiah & Omotayo, Abiodun Olusola & Oyetunde-Usman, Zainab, 2023. "To own or not to own? Land tenure security and production risk in small-scale farming," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    4. Emmanuel Olatunbosun Benjamin, 2020. "Smallholder Agricultural Investment and Productivity under Contract Farming and Customary Tenure System: A Malawian Perspective," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(8), pages 1-17, August.
    5. Frances Warren, 2023. "Population density, urbanisation and agricultural mechanisation in modern Ghana," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 1605-1629, August.

    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. 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).
    2. Kotchikpa Gabriel Lawin & Lota Tamini, 2018. "Droits de propriété foncière et performance des petits producteurs agricoles des pays en développement : une synthèse de la littérature empirique," CIRANO Working Papers 2018s-05, CIRANO.
    3. Fenske, James, 2011. "Land tenure and investment incentives: Evidence from West Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(2), pages 137-156, July.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Lambrecht, Isabel, 2016. "“As a husband I will love, lead, and provide:†Gendered access to land in Ghana:," IFPRI discussion papers 1514, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    7. Qian, Chen & Antonides, Gerrit & Heerink, Nico & Zhu, Xueqin & Ma, Xianlei, 2022. "An economic-psychological perspective on perceived land tenure security: Evidence from rural eastern China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    8. Muna Shifa & Murray Leibbrandt & Martin Wittenberg, 2015. "Does tenure insecurity explain the variations in land-related investment decisions in rural Ethiopia?," SALDRU Working Papers 150, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    9. Lambrecht, Isabel & Asare, Sarah, 2015. "Smallholders and land tenure in Ghana: Aligning context, empirics, and policy:," IFPRI discussion papers 1492, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    10. Gottlieb, Charles & Grobovšek, Jan, 2019. "Communal land and agricultural productivity," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 135-152.
    11. Abebaw Andarge Gedefaw, 2023. "Analysis of the Contribution of Land Registration to Sustainable Land Management in East Gojjam Zone, Ethiopia," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-21, May.
    12. Hagos, Hosaena Ghebru, 2012. "Tenure (in)security and agricultural investment of smallholder farmers in Mozambique:," MSSP working papers 5, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    13. Isabel Lambrecht & Monica Schuster & Sarah Asare Samwini & Laura Pelleriaux, 2018. "Changing gender roles in agriculture? Evidence from 20 years of data in Ghana," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 49(6), pages 691-710, November.
    14. Alia, Didier & Kusunose, Yoko & Theriault, Veronique, 2016. "Land rental, farm investment, productivity, and efficiency in Burkina Faso," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 236169, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    15. Séogo, Windinkonté & Zahonogo, Pam, 2023. "Do land property rights matter for stimulating agricultural productivity? Empirical evidence from Burkina Faso," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    16. Kimura, Yuichi, 2023. "Why are overlapping land rights disincentive against investment in agriculture?: customary land tenure institution in West Africa," MPRA Paper 116613, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Adere, Tilahun Habtamu & Mertens, Kewan & Maertens, Miet & Vranken, Liesbet, 2022. "The impact of land certification and risk preferences on investment in soil and water conservation: Evidence from southern Ethiopia," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    18. Deininger, Klaus, 2010. "Towards sustainable systems of land administration: Recent evidence and challenges for Africa," African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, African Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 5(1), pages 1-22, September.
    19. Uwacu Alban Singirankabo & Maurits Willem Ertsen, 2020. "Relations between Land Tenure Security and Agricultural Productivity: Exploring the Effect of Land Registration," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(5), pages 1-18, May.
    20. Daniel Ayalew Ali & Klaus Deininger & Markus Goldstein, 2011. "Environmental and Gender Impacts of Land Tenure Regularization in Africa," World Bank Other Operational Studies 25527, The World Bank.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    land tenure; land rights; gender; land reform;
    All these keywords.

    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:fpr:ifprid:1545. 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://edirc.repec.org/data/ifprius.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.