Participation in property formation: Insights from land-use planning in an informal urban settlement in Tanzania

This study argues that where land-use planning of any kind is conducted, it plays a supporting role that enables the property formation process to be effective. It uses evidence from Makongo Juu Settlement (in Tanzania) to reveal that the participation of actors with various levels of tenure awareness is necessary for property formation (land parceling). As the study is case-study focused, it uses data collected through a mix of procedures—including in-depth interviews, survey questionnaires, and documentary processes—analyzed qualitatively. Findings confirm that land-use planning introduces or embeds formal rules and regulations that govern the use of land. Furthermore, the study presents the affected persons’ narratives of their involvement in the property formation process. This medium allowed for an understanding of their perspectives of the property formation in the context of land-use planning. Apart from these empirical revelations (among other findings), the study contributes to land administration and land management literature in three ways. First, it outlines a typical outlook of formal and informal land development processes. Second, it deconstructs property formation in the context of land-use planning in an informal settlement. Thirdly, it presents the typical categories of actors (including their roles and viewpoints) in the participatory property formation process in an informal settlement. The study recommends that cadastral surveying (Property formation) and land-use planning should be better integrated for the formalization of property rights. This recommendation is considered necessary because there is evidence that land-use planning assigns rights (including restrictions and obligations or responsibilities) that owners and users of land have to follow in the property formation process.     

It is where you are that matters: the spatial determinants of rural poverty in India

The spatial patterns of poverty in India are of considerable importance in themselves and for development theory and practice. This article examines the determinants of rural poverty in India using spatial econometric methods. It finds that while agricultural growth is the key determinant of rural poverty declines, there is significant spatial dependence in the growth rates of agricultural output. Irrigation is the primary driver of agricultural growth, and spatial variations in irrigation development seem to be associated with agro‐ecological conditions which may be vastly different within Indian states, parts of which may be similar to those prevailing in geographically contiguous states. Poverty reduction strategies need to be designed in the light of spatial factors and using spatial methods.     

Pathways out of poverty in lagging regions: evidence from rural western China

How to reduce poverty in lagging regions remains much debated and underserved with solid empirical evidence. This study illustrates an empirical methodology to analyze the pathways households followed out of poverty and to explore their potential in the future using 2000–2004 rural household panel data from two lagging provinces of China, Inner Mongolia and Gansu. It finds that rising labor productivity in agriculture has been key in understanding poverty reduction in rural lagging areas of these provinces and that it still holds much promise. Circular migration has also been important in Gansu, though less so in Inner Mongolia. On average, rural diversification has not proven to contribute much to poverty reduction and income transfers and agricultural tax abolishment have only helped at the margin. The findings from these two case studies highlight that the scope for reducing poverty in rural lagging regions can still be substantial in agriculture, also when nonagriculture drives national growth.     

Efficiency–equity tradeoffs and the scope for resource reallocation in agricultural research: evidence from Nigeria

On the basis of projected economic and poverty impacts of alternative commodity research programs, this article assessed efficiency and equity tradeoffs and the scope for research resource reallocation in Nigeria. Given the importance of major food staples to both poor and nonpoor households in production and consumption, introducing a poverty dimension revealed no significant shift in priorities compared with those implied by efficiency. The results showed that neither the additional benefits to the poor nor the foregone benefits to society are significant from prioritizing research according to equity—relative to efficiency—criteria. As current priorities are supported by neither efficiency nor equity criteria, however, there is considerable scope for maximizing research benefits to the poor through informed reallocation of research resources. The article concludes with a discussion of the patterns of resource reallocations implied by efficiency and equity criteria.     

Short-term employment transitions of the Canadian labour force: rural-urban differences in underemployment

Using data from the Canadian Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) for the period 1993–1996, we examine patterns and determinants of labour‐force transitions of adequately employed and underemployed workers in an attempt to explore whether employment dynamics significantly differ between rural and urban workers so as to disadvantage rural economic performance. The results indicate that rural adequately employed workers are significantly more likely to enter underemployment but once they are underemployed, they also have a higher probability of re‐entering adequate employment. Further, we also found weak evidence that the education level of workers has a lower impact on the probability of moving out of underemployment in rural than in urban areas. In addition, rural women are significantly less likely than their male counterparts and urban workers to enter adequate employment, although the presence of young children does not seem to especially constrain the employment of rural women. The results suggest that labour‐force transition in and out of adequate employment, and particularly underemployment, significantly differ between rural and urban workers and should be taken into account when evaluating employment hardship in rural Canada.     

Incorporating Trade into the Investment Development Path: A Case Study of Korea and Taiwan

We suggest that there is some interface between the investment development path (IDP) and the trade development path (TDP)-with both trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) of created asset-intensive products increasing their significance relative to gross national product (GNP) of countries. The proportion of intra-industry trade and FDI to total trade and FDI also increases as an economy develops, particularly so for created asset-intensive products. We have taken the FDI intensity of manufacturing sectors as a proxy for a created asset intensity, and classified it into three categories, viz. above, average and below created asset intensities. Trade and FDI data from the Korean and Taiwan economies between 1968 and 1997 generally support the idea of an integrated TDP and IDP. The growth of trade and FDI tends to be positively correlated with GNP per capita and with the created asset intensity of products.     

Lessons learned: an evaluation of land administration initiatives in Latin America over the past two decades

Latin America has a long and rich history of land administration projects stretching back to the 1980s and beyond. Unfortunately, this history has not been systematically analyzed nor recorded but is buried in a myriad of reports and other gray literature. Currently, almost every country in the region has a land administration project, incorporating cadastral reform, that is either in preparation or being implemented. It is therefore timely to consider what lessons have been learned from previous experience, in the region and elsewhere, and more specifically how this experience can inform current efforts. This paper starts with a summary of a recent World Bank/USAID initiative to compile lessons learned from land administration projects around the world and follows with the author's view of lessons learned in the context of project design, institutional reform and technical innovation.     

How does land fragmentation affect off‐farm labor supply: panel data evidence from China

This article provides a deeper theoretical understanding of the linkages between land fragmentation and off‐farm labor supply in China, and investigates this relationship empirically in a more direct way than does the existing literature. Drawing upon a rural household panel data set collected in Zhejiang, Hubei, and Yunnan Provinces from 1995 to 2002, we estimate the effects in two steps. First, we estimate the effect of land fragmentation on labor productivity. Second, we estimate the effect of land fragmentation on off‐farm labor supply. The production function results show that land fragmentation indeed leads to lower agricultural labor productivity, implying that land consolidation will make on‐farm work more attractive and thus decrease off‐farm labor supply. However, the effect of land consolidation on off‐farm labor supply is not significant. One likely explanation for this result may be the potentially imperfect labor markets.     

The impact of food inflation on urban poverty and its monetary cost: some back‐of‐the‐envelope calculations

This article uses a sample of 72 developing countries to estimate the change in the cost of alleviating urban poverty brought about by the recent increase in food prices. This cost is approximated by the change in the poverty deficit (PD), that is, the variation in financial resources required to eliminate poverty under perfect targeting. The results show that, for most countries, the cost represents less than 0.2% of gross domestic product. However, in the most severely affected, it may exceed 3%. In all countries, the change in the PD is mostly due to the negative real income effect of those households that were poor before the price shock, while the cost attributable to new households falling into poverty is negligible. Thus, in countries where transfer mechanisms with effective targeting already exist, the most cost‐effective strategy would be to scale up such programs rather than designing tools to identify the new poor.     

The distribution of benefits from public international germplasm banks: the case of beans in Latin America

The unrestricted international flow of genetic resources from international genebank collections is the source of perhaps one of the greatest impacts of international agricultural research. This paper examines the distribution across countries in Latin America of benefits generated from bean genetic resources held by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). The genealogies of commercial bean cultivars released since 1976, containing materials from the collection, are analysed to calculate for each country the source of the genetic resources used. All countries in the region are shown to be heavily dependent on imported genetic resources for their commercial cultivars. From the available information on the economic impact of these improved bean varieties, the share of economic productivity benefits associated with imported germplasm by country of origin is calculated. The benefits received by each country from improved bean germplasm are compared with the contribution of that country's germplasm to other countries. Some of the patterns in the flow and use of genetic resources are analysed.     

The capability approach as a framework for assessing the role of microcredit in resource conversion: the case of rural households in the Madagascar highlands

This article applies the capability approach in order to analyse microcredit as a tool for resource conversion, which permits poor households to take advantage of latent opportunities. This approach calls for linking microcredit with the choices of the poor themselves. A sample of 290 rural households from the Madagascar highlands was surveyed over two consecutive years. To identify the most relevant dimensions of poverty available for a conversion process, data were processed using factor analysis. A hierarchical classification then permitted the distribution of the households over three capability levels. Finally, an ordered multinomial logit brings out how microcredit influences the likelihood that a household receiving such a loan will reach a higher capability level. The main findings indicate that microcredit represents a robust means to obtain a higher level of capability. Moreover, when the process of borrowing endures, poor households enter into a learning process that increases the effect of microcredit. Regardless of the gender of the household head, microcredit increases the probability of reaching an enhanced level of capability, except for the poorest households headed by a woman. The head of household’s level of education only improves the effect of microcredit if the productive system implemented needs specific competencies related to educational attainment.     

How road improvement reduces poverty: the case of Laos

A general equilibrium modeling approach is used to study the effect that rural road improvement has on poverty incidence in Laos. Household survey data are used to distinguish three categories of rural villages according to their road access: (i) no vehicular access; (ii) dry season only access; and (iii) all weather access. A general equilibrium model of the Lao economy is then used to simulate, first, the effect of upgrading category (i) to category (ii) roads, and second, category (ii) to category (iii) roads. The former has a larger poverty‐reducing effect but is also more costly.     

Industrialization in an age of globalization: some comparisons between East and South East Asia and Latin America

The contrast between industrial experience in East and South East Asia and Latin America is dramatic. Whilst a first generation of newly industrialized economies in East Asia grew rapidly on the basis of manufacturing expansion, the longer‐established industries of Latin America have performed relatively poorly by most indicators. This paper utilizes data from UN and World Bank databases to assess relative performance since the early 1980s. It shows that whilst there is some evidence of modest catch‐up in efficiency terms for Latin America in the 1990s, this is not enough to make serious inroads into the loss of international competitiveness experienced by the region in earlier decades.     

拉美失地农民问题对我国的启示

伴随着工业化和城镇化的高速发展,中国失地农民就业难已成为突出的社会问题。拉美一些国家由于不平等的土地分配制度与城市化的过度发展,也产生了大量的失地农民。失地农民蜂拥挤入大城市,在就业机会严重不足的情况下,引发了严峻的社会问题。拉美失地农民问题启示我们,中国应科学有序地发展城市化、妥善安排失地农民的就业、切实保障失地农民的利益。     

A CGE analysis of trade costs in the Russian agrofood sector

Ten years after the end of central planning, enormous interregional price differences indicate that Russian food markets are not well integrated spatially. Trade potentials are thus not exploited, most probably because of high trade costs. Besides transport costs, transaction costs seem to play an important role as an impediment to interregional arbitrage. These transaction costs can be very high in transition countries due to underdeveloped market structures and weak public institutions. After subtracting transport costs from interregional price differences, large differences remain, particularly in the case of high‐value products. It is assumed that these residual price differences constitute the transaction cost component of total trade costs. The regional economic impact of different trade cost components is quantified using a bi‐regional computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. Simulations show that the results are quite different between the two stylized regions (East and West), depending on which trade cost component is reduced. While the welfare effects of varying customs tariffs and transport margins are rather limited, lower transaction costs of trade seem to be a promising way to achieve a better functioning food market in Russia.     

Economic implications of alternative mill mud management options in the Australian sugar industry

Sugar mills produce a range of byproducts during the process of extracting sugar from cane. Mill mud is one of the byproducts produced in significant volume. The practice of spreading mill mud onto cane fields close by the mill has been the primary means of disposing of mill mud for many years. The continued application of mill mud at high rates, without appropriate recognition of its nutrient content, the soil condition, crop nutrient requirements, slope of the land, or proximity of application sites to environmentally sensitive areas has raised a number of concerns in recent years, including overfertilization, heavy‐metal contamination, leaching, and offsite impacts from drainage to waterways. This study develops a regional mathematical programming model to determine optimal rates of mill mud application for various soil types and distances from the mill in the Mackay region in central Queensland, Australia. The optimal application rate of mill mud varies according to soil type and by distance from the mill. Lower rates of mill mud application are economically desirable at greater distances from the mill. However, when the cost of mill mud application is shared between growers and the mill operator, the optimal application rates are reduced at some locations while increasing at others.