Person:
Deininger, Klaus
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
Agriculture and Food Security
Degrees
Departments
Agricultural and Rural Development Unit, Development Research Group, The World Bank
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Klaus Deininger is a Lead Economist in in the Agriculture and Rural Development Team of the World Bank's Development Research Group. His areas of research focus on income and asset inequality and its relationship to poverty reduction and growth; access to land, land markets and land reform and their impact on household welfare and agricultural productivity; land tenure and its impact on investment, including environmental sustainability; and capacity building (including the use of quantitative and qualitative methods) for policy analysis and evaluation, mainly in the Africa, Central America, and East Asia Regions. He is a German national with a Ph.D. in Applied Economics from the University of Minnesota, an MA in Agricultural Economics from the University of Berlin, and an MA in theology from the University of Bonn.
Publication Search Results
1 - 10 of 119
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Publication
Impacts of Land Certification on Tenure Security, Investment, and Land Markets : Evidence from Ethiopia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-10)Although early attempts at land titling in Africa were often unsuccessful, the need to secure rights in view of increased demand for land, options for registration of a continuum of individual or communal rights under new laws, and the scope for reducing costs by combining information technology with participatory methods have led to renewed interest. This paper uses a difference-in-difference approach to assess economic impacts of a low-cost registration program in Ethiopia that, over 5 years, covered some 20 million parcels. Despite policy constraints, the program increased tenure security, land-related investment, and rental market participation and yielded benefits significantly above the cost of implementation. -
Publication
Rural Land Certification in Ethiopia : Process, Initial Impact, and Implications for Other African Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-04)Although many African countries have recently adopted highly innovative and pro-poor land laws, lack of implementation thwarts their potentially far-reaching impact on productivity, poverty reduction, and governance. The authors use a representative household survey from Ethiopia where, over a short period, certificates to more than 20 million plots were issued to describe the certification process, explore its incidence and preliminary impact, and quantify the costs. While this provides many suggestions to ensure sustainability and enhance impact, Ethiopia's highly cost-effective first-time registration process provides important lessons. -
Publication
Do Overlapping Property Rights Reduce Agricultural Investment? Evidence from Uganda
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-08)The need for land-related investment to ensure sustainable land management and increase productivity of land use is widely recognized. However, there is little rigorous evidence on the effects of property rights for increasing agricultural productivity and contributing toward poverty reduction in Africa. Whether and by how much overlapping property rights reduce investment incentives, and the scope for policies to counter such disincentives, are thus important policy issues. Using information on parcels under ownership and usufruct by the same household from a nationally representative survey in Uganda, the authors find significant disincentives associated with overlapping property rights on short and long-term investments. The paper combines this result with information on crop productivity to obtain a rough estimate of the magnitudes involved. The authors make suggestions on ways to eliminate such inefficiencies. -
Publication
Efficiency and Equity Impacts of Rural Land Rental Restrictions : Evidence from India
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-08)Recognition of the potentially deleterious implications of inequality in opportunity originating in a skewed asset distribution has spawned considerable interest in land reforms. However, little attention has been devoted to fact that, in the longer term, the measures used to implement land reforms could negatively affect productivity. Use of state level data on rental restrictions, together with a nationally representative survey from India, suggests that, contrary to original intentions, rental restrictions negatively affect productivity and equity. The restrictions reduce the scope for efficiency-enhancing rental transactions that benefit poor producers. Simulations suggest that, by doubling the number of producers with access to land through rental, from about 15 million currently, liberalization of rental markets could have far-reaching impacts. -
Publication
Determinants and Consequences of Land Sales Market Participation : Panel Evidence from India
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-08)Although opinions on impacts of land market transfers are sharply divided, few studies explore the welfare and productivity effects of land markets on a larger scale. This paper uses a large Indian panel spanning almost 20 years, together with a climatic shock (rainfall) indicator, to assess the productivity and equity effects of market-mediated land transfers (sale and purchase) compared with non-market ones (inheritance). The analysis shows that frequent shocks increase land market activity, an effect that is mitigated by the presence of safety nets and banks. Land sales markets improved productivity and helped purchasers, many of whom were formerly landless, to accumulate non-land assets and significantly enhance their welfare. -
Publication
Securing Property Rights in Transition : Lessons from Implementation of China's Rural Land Contracting Law
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-12)This paper is motivated by the emphasis on secure property rights as a determinant of economic development in recent literature. The authors use village and household level information from about 800 villages throughout China to explore whether legal reform increased protection of land rights against unauthorized reallocation or expropriation with below-average compensation by the state. The analysis provides nation-wide evidence on a sensitive topic. The authors find positive impacts, equivalent to increasing land values by 30 percent, of reform even in the short term. Reform originated in villages where democratic election of leaders ensured a minimum level of accountability, pointing toward complementarity between good governance and legal reform. The paper explores the implications for situations where individuals and groups hold overlapping rights to land. -
Publication
Assessing the Functioning of Land Rental Markets in Ethiopia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-12)Although a large theoretical literature discusses the possible inefficiency of sharecropping contracts, the empirical evidence on this phenomenon has been ambiguous at best. Household-level fixed-effect estimates from about 8,500 plots operated by households that own and sharecrop land in the Ethiopian highlands provide support for the hypothesis of Marshallian inefficiency. At the same time, a factor adjustment model suggests that the extent to which rental markets allow households to attain their desired operational holding size is extremely limited. Our analysis points towards factor market imperfections (no rental for oxen), lack of alternative employment opportunities, and tenure insecurity as possible reasons underlying such behavior, suggesting that, rather than worrying almost exclusively about Marshallian inefficiency, it is equally warranted to give due attention to the policy framework within which land rental markets operate. -
Publication
Land Reforms, Poverty Reduction, and Economic Growth : Evidence from India
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-12)Recognition of the importance of institutions that provide security of property rights and relatively equal access to economic resources to a broad cross-section of society has renewed interest in the potential of asset redistribution, including land reforms. Empirical analysis of the impact of such policies is, however, scant and often contradictory. This paper uses panel household data from India, together with state-level variation in the implementation of land reform, to address some of the deficiencies of earlier studies. The results suggest that land reform had a significant and positive impact on income growth and accumulation of human and physical capital. The paper draws policy implications, especially from the fact that the observed impact of land reform seems to have declined over time. -
Publication
Land Rental Markets in the Process of Rural Structural Transformation : Productivity and Equity Impacts in China
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-12)The importance of land rental for overall economic development has long been recognized in theory, yet empirical evidence on the productivity and equity impacts of such markets and the extent to which they realize their potential has been scant. Representative data from China's nine most important agricultural provinces illustrate the impact of rental markets on households' economic strategies and welfare, and the productivity of land use at the plot level. Although there are positive impacts in each of these dimensions, transaction costs constrain participation by many producers, thus preventing rental markets from attaining their full potential. The paper identifies factors that increase transaction costs and provides a rough estimate of the productivity and equity impacts of removing them. -
Publication
Investment and Income Effects of Land Regularization : The Case of Nicaragua
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2002-01)The authors use data from Nicaragua to examine the impact of the award of registered and nonregistered title on land values and on investments attached to land. They find that receipt of registered title increases land values by 30 percent and greatly increases the propensity to invest, bringing investment closer to the optimum. Consistent with descriptive statistics indicating great demand for regularization of land rights, especially from the poor, this finding suggests that titling can have a positive distributional effect. Of overriding importance, however, are the legal validity and official recognition of the titles issued.