Untitled Land, Occupational Choice, and Agricultural Productivity

Chaoran Chen

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 2017, vol. 9, issue 4, 91-121

Abstract: The prevalence of untitled land in poor countries helps explain the international agricultural productivity differences. Since untitled land cannot be traded across farmers, it creates land misallocation and distorts individuals' occupational choice between farming and working outside agriculture. I build a two-sector general equilibrium model to quantify the impact of untitled land. I find that economies with higher percentages of untitled land would have lower agricultural productivity; land titling can increase agricultural productivity by up to 82.5 percent. About 42 percent of this gain is due to eliminating land misallocation, and the remaining is due to eliminating distortions in individuals' occupational choice.

JEL-codes: J24 J43 O13 P14 Q12 Q15 Q24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
Note: DOI: 10.1257/mac.20140171
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (65)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Untitled Land, Occupational Choice, and Agricultural Productivity (2016)
Working Paper: Untitled Land, Occupational Choice, and Agricultural Productivity (2014)
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