GETTING INSTITUTIONS 'RIGHT' FOR WHOM: CREDIT CONSTRAINTS AND THE IMPACT OF PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE QUANTITY AND COMPOSITION OF INVESTMENT

The effects of property rights on investment are typically hypothesized to occur through a security-induced investment demand and a collateral-based credit supply. Using a two period model, this paper shows that for farms that are constrained in their access to liquidity, the investment demand effect will itself induce an increase in the endogenous shadow price of liquidity. Other things equal, this induced increase in the price of liquidity will discourage capital accumulation, and that the desired stock of expropriation-immune movable capital may decrease with tenure security. Empirical analysis of farm-level data from Paraguay corroborates this proposition and reveals that the underlying pattern of wealth-biased capital access creates a world in which property rights reform has differential effects across producer wealth classes and gets institutions "right" and agriculture moving for only for a wealthier subset of producers.