Customary vs Private Property Rights? Dynamics and Trajectories of Vernacular Land Markets in Sub‐Saharan Africa

Contemporary discourse on land in Africa is polarized between advocates of tenure reform through state registration of individual titles to land and others who claim that customary or 'communal' tenure is the only check against landlessness among the poor in the African countryside, and that 'pro-poor' land policy should therefore strengthen customary rights to land. This paper draws on a growing body of evidence on the emergence of vernacular rural land sales and rental markets to question assumptions that underlie the non-market 'ideal type' communal tenure model that has historically dominated policy thinking in Africa, and continues to be shared by both sides of the current land tenure reform debate. The paper argues that recognition of the specific characteristics of 'vernacular land markets'– commoditized transfers of land within the framework of customary tenure – is essential if state land policies are to succeed in promoting the interests of the poor.     

新农地制度下的土地产权安全性对土地租赁市场发育的影响

研究目的:检验新农地制度下的土地产权安全性对土地租赁市场发育的影响及农户参与土地租赁市场和非农就业市场间的联立性。研究方法:计量经济模型。研究结果:(1)农户租入土地决策与参与非农就业市场间存在联立性,提高土地产权的安全性能够显著激励农户租入土地的积极性;(2)农户租出土地决策与参与非农就业市场间并不存在明显的联立性,提高土地产权的安全性对土地租出决策具有微弱的激励作用。研究结论:新农地制度下的土地产权不安全性成为制约土地租赁市场发育的重要产权因素,土地的社会保障功能放大了农地产权不安全性对土地租赁市场发育带来的负面影响。     

供需系统视角下北京市集体土地建设租赁住房政策效果仿真研究

研究目的：基于系统论视角构建北京市集体土地建设租赁住房政策效果仿真模型,剖析政策运行影响机理,预测政策试点未来实施效果并寻找优化路径,以期形成可复制可参考试点经验。研究方法：运用系统动力学构建仿真模型模拟压力型、需求型、要素型、市场型4种情景下政策运行效果。研究结果：（1）从供给和需求两方面构建集体土地建设租赁住房政策效果仿真模型,供给侧包括政策供给子系统、项目供给子系统、土地供给子系统,需求侧为承租人需求子系统;（2）至2030年,北京市集体土地建设租赁住房土地供应量可以达到2 000 hm2左右,建设项目150个左右;（3）对政策效果的影响方面,政府压力因素是最主要正向的影响因素,其次为市场因素、承租人需求因素、土地供给因素。研究结论：加大投融资政策扶持,综合运用政策、市场、要素、需求等途径,激励市场主体参与积极性,保障集体土地建设租赁住房政策有效落实。     

Land tenure and rental in Western Sudan

This paper reports on aspects of land tenure in western Sudan, especially the nature of tenure insecurity and the functioning of the land rental market. The active land rental market accounted for about one-third of cultivated land. Patterns of land rental transactions, and tests of the importance of insecurity in renting land, where the owner may not be able to reclaim land rented out, do not support the presumption that rental markets perform poorly. The role of the sheikh as administrator of village land, and the claims of large landowners to vast tracts, are, however, important political problems that must be resolved before attempts at ‘rationalizing’ land tenure.     

The factors influencing the profitability of leased land on dairy farms in Ireland

The Republic of Ireland possesses a land market that is constrained by minimal sales each year, less than 1%. In an effort to capitalise on milk quota abolition and to increase dairy production, a suite of tax incentives has recently been introduced in the Republic of Ireland to encourage land mobility and long-term leasing among Irish dairy farmers. Using Irish Farm Accountancy Database Network (FADN) data from 2011–2017 to examine this, a Heckman sample selection model explores two aspects; (i) the factors that influence a farmer’s decision to rent, or continue renting, land and (ii) the profitability of dairy farmers renting in land. We find self-selection into the rental market is driven by farm traits that include a high level of hired labour, the presence of a successor, intensive farming practices and dairy discussion group membership. The results show that rental agreements assist farms in achieving economies of scale. The findings provide evidence to support government intervention such as tax incentives for renting out land and knowledge sharing discussion groups.     

Land Tenure,Tenure Security and Farm Efficiency: Panel Evidence from the Philippines

This article tests the relationships among formalised property rights, land tenure contracts and productive efficiency in farming. Using four rounds of panel data from 230 rice farms in the Philippines, we measure the effects of land tenure arrangements on farm efficiency using a stochastic production frontier model. We test for the allocative efficiency of observed land rental markets. We also test how land tenure security affects farmers' investment decisions. Results suggest that, despite the presence of formalised titles, the rental market remains inefficient at allocating land. In contrast, the unformalised tenure contracts used by farmers appear to provide tenure security.     

Unravelling the dynamics of access to farmland in Tigray,Ethiopia: The ‘emerging land market’ revisited

This article uses ethnographic evidence from Tigray to revisit the debate on informal rural land markets in present-day Ethiopia. It explores informal farmland rental from a historico-anthropological, micro-analytical perspective in relation to the formal allocation of land use rights and to other informal land transfer practices. It shows how different rationales for land rental give rise to different socially embedded tenancy configurations. On the basis of this empirical evidence, the paper questions the appropriateness of the common idea that in Ethiopia ‘the land rental market is expanding’. It argues that research and policy thinking on land in Ethiopia could gain analytical power and relevance by adopting a less monolithic and abstract view on people's informal land transfer practices.     

Tenants, Landlords, and Soil Conservation

It has long been argued that tenants tend to overexploit land, but this conventional wisdom has been derived largely without consideration of landlords' actions. We examine what happens when landlords can invest in durable conservation measures in addition to choosing rental contract terms. When tenants are risk neutral, landlords overinvest in conservation under cash rental contracts but can achieve first best levels of output and protection against land degradation when conservation investment is combined with share rental. When tenants are risk averse, the first best is unattainable. In this case, conservation investment combined with share rental results in output levels below the first best, while equilibrium conservation investment may be greater or less than the first best. These results suggest that contract form and conservation investments are likely made simultaneously, so that econometric studies of conservation practice adoption that treat rental status as exogenous are likely subject to bias.     

Drivers of transaction costs affecting participation in the rental market for cropland in Vietnam

Farm incomes in rural Vietnam are tightly constrained by very small farm sizes. Stringent limits on the area of cropland that individuals may own means that farmers need a well‐functioning rental market to consolidate land parcels, grow their farm enterprises, adopt new technology and increase incomes. This research investigates the efficiency and equity impacts of the rental market in rural Vietnam and attempts to identify transaction costs impeding the market. A generalised ordered logit model with shifting thresholds allowing transaction costs to impact lessors and lessees differently was specified and estimated using data extracted from the Vietnam Household Living Standards Surveys. The findings show that rental transactions reduced imbalances in factor endowments, transferring cropland to households that were relatively land‐poor but more willing and able to farm. However, the market is constrained by transaction costs that affect lessors and lessees differently. It is recommended that government should complete its land registration program and relax restrictions on the use of wetlands to grow crops other than rice. It should also improve access to all‐weather roads as this encourages participation on both sides of the rental market, whereas better access to communications infrastructure was found to promote only the supply side.     

How do informal farmland rental markets affect smallholders’ well‐being? Evidence from a matched tenant–landlord survey in Malawi

We estimate the efficiency and equity returns to farmland rental markets in Malawi using a matched tenant–landlord survey of smallholder farm households in four districts. Our sample allows us to more fully observe the landlord side of the rental market, which is almost always missing in previous studies. Our results suggest that land rental markets promote efficiency by facilitating a net transfer of land to more productive farmers. We also find that land rental markets promote equity as conventionally defined in the land markets literature, that is, by transferring land from land‐rich households to land‐poor households, and from labor‐poor to labor‐rich households. However, our study identifies some important challenges for land rental markets in this context. First, we find that tenants in our sample are wealthier than their landlord counterpart on average in all dimensions other than landholding. In addition, most landlords report the motive for renting out their land as either the need for immediate cash, or the lack of labor and/or capital to cultivate the plot that was rented out. These findings align with concerns about potential “stress renting” by poor landlords and suggest the value of defining equity along a broader set of dimensions other than simply equalizing the distribution of farmland and labor.     

关系治理还是契约治理：农地流转治理结构的 转型逻辑与区域差异研究

研究目的：为完善农地产权制度和要素市场化配置机制,从制度、经济与文化三个层面分析农地流转治理结构的转型逻辑与区域差异。研究方法：逻辑演绎法,Biprobit模型。研究结果：（1）促进农地流转从关系治理向契约治理转型的核心驱动因素是产权的界定与实施、流转租金的上涨和人情往来的减少。（2）农地流转治理结构及其转型逻辑存在明显的区域异质性。东部和西部地区更偏向契约治理,中部地区更偏向关系治理。在驱动因素上,东部地区较高的流转租金和完善的土地流转服务是主要的转型驱动力,中部地区的人情文化传统较深,阻碍了农地流转的市场化转型,西部地区的土地确权颁证率较高,发挥出了明显的确权效应。研究结论：（1）完善的农地产权制度是农地流转市场的基石,不仅要保障产权明晰,还要构建有效的产权实施机制;（2）经济利益是驱动农地流转市场转型的重要因素,要促进农地价值形成合理的价格参照系;（3）文化观念是农地流转市场转型的重要支撑,要协调好市场观念与文化传统之间的关系;（4）需因地制宜地推进农地流转市场转型。     

Rental markets for cultivated land and agricultural investments in China

The purpose of this paper is to empirically track the progress and consequences of the emergence of cultivated land markets in China since 2000. We draw on a set of nationwide, household‐level panel data (for 2000 and 2008) and find that the markets for cultivated land rental have emerged robustly. According to our data, 19 of China's cultivated land was rented in farm operators in 2008. We also find that the nature of China's cultivated land rental contracts has become more formal and lengthened the period of time that the tenant is able to cultivate the rented‐in plots. While there may be benefits for lessors and tenants, our data show that there are falling rates of investment in organic manure. The farmers in our sample have reduced organic manure use from 13 tons/ha in 2000 to 5 tons/ha in 2008. Part of this fall is due to the rise of cultivated land rental markets. The analysis, however, does not find that improved property rights in cultivated land rental affect investment largely because property rights have largely been established by 2000, the first year of our sample. Our results, however, also show that there are forces that appear to be mitigating the negative consequences of rising cultivated land rental. After holding constant initial rental rates and other factors, we find that the gap between investment in organic manure in own land and rented‐in land is narrowing. One interpretation of our findings is that if policymakers can find ways to even further strengthen the rights of lessors and tenants as well as lengthen contract periods, farmers—even those that rent—will invest more in their land, because they will be able to capture the returns to their investments.     

住房用地二元体制对公共租赁房产业化发展的影响研究

研究目的:研究出让与划拨两种不同性质住房用地对公共租赁房产业化发展的影响,探讨用地制度改革以推进公共租赁房可持续发展。研究方法:归纳分析法与规范分析方法。研究结果:在住房用地二元体制下,地方政府不具有持续扩大公共租赁房有效供给的内在动力,房地产企业市场化开发的业务模式无法支撑公共租赁房产业化发展。通过用地制度调整和相关政策设计,可降低完全产权公共租赁房的开发成本,吸引社会资金进入投资开发领域,形成地方政府、房地产企业、居民家庭多赢的公共租赁房发展模式。研究结论:通过住房用地制度改革与相关配套政策调整,可实现在地方政府主导下以市场而非行政方式推进公共租赁房产业的可持续发展。     

Does Spatial Dependence Affect the Intention to Make Land Available for Bioenergy Crops?

We find spatial dependence in landowners’ stated intentions to make land available for bioenergy crops. Our data are generated from a contingent valuation survey of 599 owners of marginal land in southern Michigan. Employing a Bayesian framework and using these spatially explicit data, we estimate and compare non‐spatial probit and spatial Durbin probit models to examine the presence of spatial dependence in land rental intentions. Results show that intentions to rent land for bioenergy crop production are spatially dependent. This spatial dependence arises both from the land supply intentions of nearby landowners and from spatial spillover effects of landowner characteristics and attitudes towards environmental amenities and the disamenities of land rental. We show that ignoring spatial dependence in the intentions of neighbouring landowners to participate in land rental markets for bioenergy feedstocks can lead to distortions that underestimate total effects. Our finding implies that studies of land use and crop supply should test for spatial interactions in order to make accurate inferences.     

A social-media-based approach to assessing the effectiveness of equitable housing policy in mitigating education accessibility induced social inequalities in Shanghai,China

Social inequalities induced by education accessibility are widespread and concern land use policy makers globally. Yet much of existing research heavily emphasizes on uncovering the spatial patterns of housing price in relation to education resources. This paper aims to renew our understanding of this classical topic by bringing the importance of temporal and institutional dynamics to the fore. Specifically, this research presents a detailed examination of the relationship between school quality and housing rental dynamics under the intervention of equitable housing policy, with special reference to Shanghai, the most developed megacity in China, also one of the first Chinese cities granting equal rights for renters to access schools within the catchment area. Based on time-series housing rental data collected from social media, the t-test discovers that school quality has a significant impact on housing rental prices after the introduction of this new housing policy. Moreover, housing rental prices within high-quality school districts are significantly higher than those within ordinary school districts. The hedonic model and variance partitioning further confirm that school quality is capitalized into housing rental prices, and its relative contribution varies with temporal periods. More specifically, how the relative contribution of school quality changes over time is consistent with the schedule of primary school enrollment and sensitive to policy intervention. The difference in difference model foregrounds that the equitable housing policy does result in rental prices hike in high-quality school districts, i.e., a 13.5 % rental premium of housings within high-quality school districts compared with those within ordinary ones. We conclude that the equitable housing policy fails to achieve the expected goal and propose alternative suggestions for mitigating social inequalities in education accessibility. This study demonstrates a novel methodological framework for evaluating the social consequence of equitable housing policy based on social media data. It unravels how housing rental changes with school district division and the capitalization effect of school quality in housing rental prices.     

Impacts of 2003 CAP reform on land rental prices and capitalization

Based on a graphical analysis, we investigate the impacts of the Fischler Reform of the Common Agricultural Policy on land rental prices and the capitalization of single farm payments (SFP) into land values. The model shows that the degree of capitalization mainly depends on the scarcity/surplus of SFP entitlements relative to eligible hectares, the implementation model (historical versus regional) and the land supply elasticity. If there are more SFP entitlements than eligible hectares, the degree of capitalization into land values may not decline and may even increase due to the inclusion of other supports such as animal premiums in the SFP. We test this hypothesis with an empirical analysis of cross-section data on land rental prices in Bavaria for 2005. Empirical results indicate that decoupled SFP are capitalized into rental prices to a larger degree than the coupled direct payments of the time prior to the reform.     

Landowner willingness to supply marginal land for bioenergy production

This study elicits willingness to supply marginal land for biomass cultivation in Southern Lower Michigan. Most of the surveyed landowners are not interested in renting land for bioenergy crop production. Those who are interested offer relatively little land for bioenergy crops, even at rental rates three times current levels. Willing landowners would prefer to grow a significant portion of these crops on cropland rather than non-crop, marginal land. Hence, the area of marginal land that owners are willing to supply for bioenergy crop production falls far short of area estimates based on remote sensing that ignore landowner preferences.     

Land rental markets and labor productivity: Evidence from rural China

This study investigates the impact of the land rental market on labor productivity in rural China. Particular attention is given to farm and nonfarm labor productivity. Using 2012 household‐level data and a multinomial endogenous switching treatment regression technique, we find that rural households renting in farmland increased labor productivity in the farm sector by about 55%, whereas labor productivity in the nonfarm sector decreased by about 6%. We also find that rural households renting out farmland had lower labor productivity in both the farm and nonfarm sectors by 13% and 9%, respectively. More family labor transferred from the farm to the nonfarm sector after renting out land.     

Smallholder participation in the land rental market in a mountainous region of Southern China: Impact of population aging,land tenure security and ethnicity

Rural land rental markets in China play an increasingly important role in the transformation of the agricultural sector. This study focuses on the rural land rental market in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture in Southern China, a mountainous region, where rapid changes in land use have taken place with the transition from traditional agriculture and a tropical rainforest to rubber monoculture. Notably, we assess the impacts of population aging, land tenure security, and ethnicity on the participation of smallholders in the land rental market. The analysis suggests that a higher proportion of older people in a household increases the likelihood of renting out land and reduces the probability of renting in land, implying that population aging fosters land rental market development by transferring land from older to younger farmers. We also confirm that the availability of a land tenure certificate has a significant and positive impact on the renting out of land. Furthermore, ethnic minority groups are less likely to rent out land, indicating that land rental markets are ethnic sensitive. Additionally, specialization in rubber farming, household wealth and the altitude of household location also influence participation in the land rental market.     

Determinants of agricultural land rental market transactions in Bangladesh

Land rental market transactions have been the norm in land scarce rural Bangladesh mainly due to the inadequacies of the governmental land distribution system to meet the growing demand for land and to correct imbalances in factor proportions at the farm-level. The present study jointly determines the socio-economic factors underlying decision to rent-in land and/or rent-out land by the Bangladeshi farmers in the land rental market using a bivariate Tobit model. The model diagnostic reveals that the decisions to rent-in and/or rent-out land is significantly correlated, implying that univariate analysis of such decisions are biased, thereby, justifying the use of a bivariate approach. Results reveal that a number of socio-economic factors affect farmers’ participation in the land rental market and work in opposite directions regarding the decision to rent-in or rent-out land. The likelihood of renting-in land is higher for farmers with inadequate cultivable land but with higher levels of livestock and other farm capital asset ownership, and also for those located in areas with developed infrastructure and fertile soils. On the other hand, the likelihood of renting-out land is higher among farmers with higher levels of cultivable land but inadequate farm capital and livestock resources, higher levels of education, less subsistence pressure, and poor extension contact. Geography does matter, as the likelihood of land transactions is higher in agriculturally intensive and/or developed regions. Government policy has an important role to play to improve the factor equalisation role of these land rental markets through, for example, investment in education, agricultural extension, rural infrastructure and the livestock sector.