At the community level, bylaws and other regulations are commonly used to manage natural resources. However, there is limited research on how communities enact these regulations and what determines awareness and compliance with these regulations. A survey of 273 communities was conducted in...

In this paper, we develop a theoretical model of land leasing that includes transaction costs, risk pooling motives and non-tradable productive inputs, and investigate the empirical implications of land contracts using data collected from four villages in Ethiopia. We show that sharecropping is...

Land degradation in the form of soil erosion and nutrient depletion presents a threat to food security and sustainability of agricultural production in many developing countries. Governments and development agencies have invested substantial resources to promote soil conservation practices as...

This paper investigates the extent to which poor households are discouraged from making a nondivisible but profitable investment. Using data on irrigation wells in India, the authors estimate the parameters of a structural model of irreversible investment. Results show that poor farmers fail to...