The Impact of Property Rights Imperfections on Resource Allocation: Co-Ownership of Land in Bulgaria

Liesbet Vranken (), Karen Macours, Nivelin Noev and Johan Swinnen

No 9449, 103rd Seminar, April 23-25, 2007, Barcelona, Spain from European Association of Agricultural Economists

Abstract: This paper analyzes how imperfections of property rights affect allocation of assets and welfare, using micro-survey data from Bulgaria. Co-ownership of assets is widespread in many countries due to inheritance. Central and Eastern Europe offers an interesting natural experiment to assess the effects of such rights imperfections because of the asset restitution process in the 1990s. Bulgaria is particularly interesting because of the prominence of the co-ownership problem (about half of all land plots are co-owned), because of the strong fragmentation of land, and because of legislation providing an instrument to separate out chosen (endogenous) versus forced (exogenous) forms of co-ownership. We find that land in co-ownership is much more likely to be used by less efficient farm organizations or to be left abandoned, and that it leads to significant welfare losses.

Keywords: Land; Economics/Use (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33
Date: 2007
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:eaa103:9449

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.9449

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