Land Reforms, Status and Population Growth

Ulla Lehmijoki () and Tapio Palokangas
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Ulla Lehmijoki: University of Helsinki

No 8054, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: In this document, we consider the effects of a land reform on economic and demographic growth by a family-optimization model with sharecropping, endogenous fertility and status seeking. We show that tenant farming is the major obstacle to escaping the Malthusian trap with high fertility and low productivity. A land reform provides peasant families higher returns for their investments in land, encouraging them to increase their productivity of land rather than their family size. This decreases fertility and increases productivity in agriculture in the short and long runs. The European demographic history provides supporting evidence for this.

Keywords: land reforms; population growth; status seeking; sharecropping (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 N33 O41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2014-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-evo, nep-ger and nep-gro
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - revised version published as 'Landowning, Status and Population Growth' in: E. Moser et al. (eds.), Dynamic Optimization in Environmental Economics, Springer Verlag, Heidelberg, 2014, 315 - 328; extended and more advanced version published as 'Land Reforms and Population Growth' in: Portuguese Economic Journal, 2016, 15, 1-15 (all versions co-authored with Ulla Lehmijoki)

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