Ask a local: Improving the public pricing of land titles in urban Tanzania

Tanner Regan and Martina Manara
Additional contact information
Martina Manara: London School of Economics

Working Papers from The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy

Abstract: Information on willingness-to-pay is key for public pricing and allocation of services but not easily collected. Studying land titles in Dar-es-Salaam, we ask whether local leaders know and will reveal plot owners' willingness-to-pay. We randomly assign leaders to predict under different settings then elicit owners' actual willingness-to-pay. Demand is substantial, but below exorbitant fees. Leaders can predict the aggregate demand curve and distinguish variation across owners. Predictions worsen when used to target subsidies, but adding cash incentives mitigates this. We demonstrate that leader-elicited information can improve the public pricing of title deeds, raising uptake while maintaining public funds.

Keywords: property rights; willingness-to-pay; public pricing; local publicly provided goods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D80 H40 O17 R21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 78 pages
Date: 2022-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-dcm, nep-res and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://www2.gwu.edu/~iiep/assets/docs/papers/2022WP/ReganIIEP2022-07.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Ask a Local: Improving the Public Pricing of Land Titles in Urban Tanzania (2025)
Working Paper: Ask a local: improving the public pricing of land titles in urban Tanzania (2022)
Working Paper: Ask a local: improving the public pricing of land titles in urban Tanzania (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gwi:wpaper:2022-07

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