Does insecure land tenure deter investment? Evidence from a randomized controlled trial

Heather Huntington and Ajay Shenoy

Journal of Development Economics, 2021, vol. 150, issue C

Abstract: There is broad agreement among the most prominent observational studies that tenure insecurity deters investment. We present new experimental evidence testing this proposition: a land certification program randomized across villages in Zambia. Our results contradict the consensus. Though the intervention improved perceptions of tenure security, it had no impact on investment in the following season. The impact is still zero even after a cross-randomized agroforestry extension relaxes financial and technical constraints to agroforestry investment. Though relaxing these constraints has a direct effect, it is not enhanced by granting land tenure, implying tenure insecurity had not been a barrier to investment.

Keywords: P48; O13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:deveco:v:150:y:2021:i:c:s0304387821000110

DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2021.102632

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