Tenure Security as a Predictor of Housing Investment in Low-Income Settlements: Testing a Tripartite Model

Jean-Louis van Gelder and Eva C Luciano
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Jean-Louis van Gelder: Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement, PO Box 71304, 1008BH, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Eva C Luciano: Department of Psychology, University of Zürich, Binzmuhlestrasse 14/9, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland

Environment and Planning A, 2015, vol. 47, issue 2, 485-500

Abstract: Tenure security is widely believed to contribute to low-income settlement development by encouraging investment in housing improvement. However, in spite of consensus about its importance, it is still unclear what tenure security exactly entails and few studies have examined how it relates to housing improvement. Using survey data from six informal neighborhoods in Buenos Aires, Argentina, we empirically test a model that specifies how the different types of tenure security that feature in academic and policy debates relate to each other, and the extent to which each predicts investment in housing improvement. We find that legal tenure security and de facto security of tenure influence investment in part through increases in perceptions of tenure security. We conclude that the hypothesized model accurately predicts investment in housing improvement and discuss how these findings inform current debates on tenure security and informality.

Keywords: tenure security; informality; housing; property rights; self-help settlements; slums (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envira:v:47:y:2015:i:2:p:485-500

DOI: 10.1068/a130151p

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