Land and poverty: the role of soil fertility and vegetation quality in poverty reduction

Martin Philipp Heger, Gregor Zens and Mook Bangalore

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: The debate on the land-poverty nexus is inconclusive, with past research unable to identify the causal dynamics. We use a unique global panel dataset that links survey and census derived poverty data with measures of land ecosystems at the subnational level. Rainfall is used to overcome the endogeneity in the land-poverty relationship in an instrumental variable approach. This is the first global study using quasi-experimental methods to uncover the degree to which land improvements matter for poverty reduction. We draw three main conclusions. First, land improvements are important for poverty reduction in rural areas and particularly so for Sub-Saharan Africa. Second, land improvements are pro-poor: poorer areas see larger poverty alleviation effects due to improvements in land. Finally, irrigation plays a major role in breaking the link between bad weather and negative impacts on the poor through reduced vegetation growth and soil fertility.

Keywords: environment; global panel; land; poverty; soil fertility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I32 O11 O13 Q15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2020-08-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published in Environment and Development Economics, 1, August, 2020, 25(4), pp. 315 - 333. ISSN: 1355-770X

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:115658

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