The authors use data from Nicaragua to examine the impact of the award of registered and nonregistered title on land values and on investments attached to land. They find that receipt of registered title increases land values by 30 percent and greatly increases the propensity to invest, bringing...

Based on a large survey to compare the effectiveness of land markets and land reform in Colombia, the authors find that rental and sales markets were more effective in transferring land to poor but productive producers than was administrative land reform. The fact that land transactions were all...

While the importance of corruption as a possible impediment to foreign investment in an international context is now well realized, it is not clear to what extent corruption affects, either directly through bribe-taking or indirectly through inadequate quality of public services, the level of...

The authors use household level data for Uganda for 1999-2000 and 2002-03, before and after the abolition of user fees for public health services, to explore the effect of this policy on different groups' ability to access health services and morbidity outcomes. They find that the policy change...

While there is a large, though inconclusive, literature on the impact of land titles in Africa, little attention has been devoted to the study of land conflict, despite evidence on increasing incidence of such conflicts. The authors use data from Uganda to explore who is affected by land...

Although opinions on impacts of land market transfers are sharply divided, few studies explore the welfare and productivity effects of land markets on a larger scale. This paper uses a large Indian panel spanning almost 20 years, together with a climatic shock (rainfall) indicator, to assess the...

Recognition of the potentially deleterious implications of inequality in opportunity originating in a skewed asset distribution has spawned considerable interest in land reforms. However, little attention has been devoted to fact that, in the longer term, the measures used to implement land...

This paper is motivated by the emphasis on secure property rights as a determinant of economic development in recent literature. The authors use village and household level information from about 800 villages throughout China to explore whether legal reform increased protection of land rights...

Recognition of the importance of institutions that provide security of property rights and relatively equal access to economic resources to a broad cross-section of society has renewed interest in the potential of asset redistribution, including land reforms. Empirical analysis of the impact of...

The importance of land rental for overall economic development has long been recognized in theory, yet empirical evidence on the productivity and equity impacts of such markets and the extent to which they realize their potential has been scant. Representative data from China's nine most...