Property Rights in a Very Poor Country: Tenure Insecurity and Investment in Ethiopia

Stefan Dercon, Daniel Ayalew, The World Bank, Madhur Gautam and The World Bank
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Daniel Ayalew Ali

No GPRG-WPS-021, Economics Series Working Papers from University of Oxford, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper provides evidence from one of the poorest countries of the world that the institutions of property rights matter for efficiency, investment and growth. With all land state-owned, the threat of land redistribution never appears far off the agenda. Land rental and leasing have been made legal, but transfer rights remain restricted and the perception of continuing tenure insecurity remains quite strong. Using a unique panel data set, this study investigates whether transfer rights and tenure insecurity affect household investment decisions, focusing on trees and shrubs. The panel data estimates suggest that limited perceive transfer rights, and the threat of expropriation, negatively affects the long-term investment in Ethiopian agriculture, contributing to the low returns from land and perpetuating low growth and poverty.

Keywords: Property Rights; Investment; Agriculture; Ethiopia; Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 O17 Q15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-05-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:e1786518-c0a5-42ec-a733-c4d0bfd0c1a2 (text/html)

Related works:
Journal Article: Property rights in a very poor country: tenure insecurity and investment in Ethiopia (2011)
Working Paper: Property rights in a very poor country: tenure insecurity and investment in Ethiopia (2007)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oxf:wpaper:gprg-wps-021

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economics Series Working Papers from University of Oxford, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Anne Pouliquen ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).