Land Reforms and Economic Development
Lars Siemers2010, Macroeconomic Dynamics
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Abstract
We examine the nexus between land transfers and human capital formation. A sequence of land redistributions enables the beneficiaries to educate their children and thus to escape from poverty. A successful land reform allows the transition of a society from an agriculture-based state of poverty to a human capital–based developed economy. We find that a temporary state of inequality among the poor is unavoidable. Finally, we discuss the political economy of land reform, whether access to land markets should be allowed for beneficiaries of land reforms, and property rights issues.
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AFRICAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL RESEEARCH, 2012
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In section 1 we refer to a historical synopsis, section 2 classifies the different land reforms using KAWAGOE (1999) typology. Afterwards we link the concepts of human capital and land reform within the theory of economic growth. In section 3 a simplified formal dynamic model of land reform based on the neoclassical theory of economic growth is introduced, following SOLOW-SWAN models. In section 4 an endogenous growth model tries to evaluate land reform in the process of economic growth, based on the ROMER (1990) model. We further try to relate the notion of convergence with successful land reform. The main conclusion of these sections is that with the neoclassical exogenous framework there is convergence between small landholders and latifundia holders. This is a successful land reform: there is a finite time horizon that allows almost landless illiterate to catch up with rich literate farmers. In the case of endogenous growth there is never convergence thus the land reform process fails. Another conclusion in the endogenous framework is that, by reverse causality, failed land reforms result from perpetuating initial differential human capital stocks. In section 5, another approach is to extend ARROW (1962) learn by doing model to evaluate land reform as a structural break (or cutoff point). A condition for land reform viability is established, creating a Possibility Set of Recovery of Human Capital (PSRHC). In section 6 we simplify the theory of the firm JOVANOVIC´s (1982) model, applying it to agricultural firms to explain birth, life and death of latifundia. We establish the date and process of land reform, as a cutoff process, in which it arises from the failure of firms. Finally, in section 7, we conclude and present in section 8 the references.
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Introduction. Poverty Reduction through Land Transfers
M. Varga (2023): Poverty as Subsistence. The World Bank and Pro-Poor Land Reform in Eurasia (Stanford UP), 2023
Poverty as Subsistence explores the 'propertizing' land reform policy that the World Bank advocated throughout the transitioning countries of Eurasia, expecting poverty reduction to result from distributing property titles over agricultural land to local (rural) populations. China's early 1980s land reform offered support for this expectation, but while the spread of propertizing reform to post-communist Eurasia created numerous "subsistence" smallholders, it failed to stimulate entrepreneurship or market-based production among the rural poor. Varga argues that the World Bank advocated a simplified version of China's land reform that ignored a key element of successful reforms: the smallholders' immediate environment, the structure of actors and institutions determining whether smallholders survive and grow in their communities. With concrete insights from analysis of the land reform program throughout post-communist Eurasia and multisited fieldwork in Romania and Ukraine, this book details how and why land reform led to subsistence and the mechanisms underpinning informal commercialization.
Land, Interlinking Markets and Rural Poverty in Transition Countries
This paper analyses how various factors have affected rural poverty in transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. The paper analyses first how land reforms and land markets have affected rural poverty, and second how non-land factors have played a role, including the interlinking of input and output markets.
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Land reform -the reallocation of rights to establish a more equitable distribution of farmlandcan be a powerful strategy for promoting both economic development and environmental quality. This paper surveys land reform strategies, illustrated by the postwar reforms in East Asia and the 'bottom-up' land reform today being led by Brazil's Landless Workers' Movement. Land reform can reduce rural poverty not only by channeling a larger slice of the agricultural-income pie to low-income households, but also by increasing the size of the pie by raising land productivity. Land reform's contribution to poverty reduction can be magnified by spillover effects in the urban economy. With a supportive policy environment, land reform also can foster a transition to sustainable agriculture, due to the environmental comparative advantages of small farms.
Inequality in Land Ownership, the Emergence of Human Capital Promoting Institutions, and Great Divergence
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This paper suggests that inequality in the distribution of land ownership adversely a¤ected the emergence of human capital promoting institutions (e.g., public schooling) and thus the pace and the nature of the transition from an agricultural to an industrial economy, contributing to the emergence of the great divergence in income per capita across countries. The prediction of the theory regarding the adverse e¤ect of the concentration of land ownership on education expenditure is established empirically based on evidence from the beginning of the 20th century in the US.
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