Is Land Titling in Sub-Saharan Africa Cost-Effective?

Publication:
Is Land Titling in Sub-Saharan Africa Cost-Effective?

creativeworkseries.issn	1564-698X
dc.contributor.author	Jacoby, Hanan G.
dc.contributor.author	Minten, Bart
dc.date.accessioned	2012-03-30T07:12:36Z
dc.date.available	2012-03-30T07:12:36Z
dc.date.issued	2007-09-30
dc.description.abstract	Is Land Titling in Sub-Saharan Africa Cost-Effective? A cost benefit analysis suggests that the current system of formal titling should not be extended in rural Madagascar and that any new system of land registration would have to be quite inexpensive to be worthwhile. Indeed, establishing a modern property rights system without legally recognizing informal rights may expand the scope for rent-seeking, thus creating additional insecurity (Atwood 1990). Purchasing a titled plot without easily being able to update the name on the document exposes the buyer to the risk that a relative of the seller, sharing the family name, might subsequently claim the plot or challenge the transfer. Analyses omitted here for brevity indicate that there is no significant advantage to owning titled land in terms of a household's access to formal credit, after controlling for the household's landholdings within the mailles (such land being much more likely to be titled), and titled plots are no more likely to be used as collateral for formal loans than are untitled plots of equivalent size, after also controlling for their position in the mailles (see Jacoby and Minten 2006). At any rate, this impact, at about 7 percent, is not large (the ceteris paribus productivity effect of having a plot in the mailles, by comparison, is on the order of 30 percent), and as argued earlier should be viewed as an upper bound on the true effect. The value of land incorporates any productivity effect of titling operating through increased land-specific investment, as well as the direct effect of expropriation risk operating through the risk-adjusted discount rate, r u. Finally, market values should also reflect the extent to which titled land is easier (or more difficult) to transact. If reported plot values reflect their true market valuation and all relevant plot characteristics can be controlled for, then OLS should produce unbiased estimates of the titling effect. The findings of this study are based on a very large sample of plots and support the notion that indigenous tenure provides adequate security for farmers to undertake the limited range of investment activities commensurate with the prevailing agricultural technology. Given this potential cost, future research should strive to determine whether such negative titling externalities are indeed empirically important.	en
dc.identifier.citation	World Bank Economic Review
dc.identifier.doi	10.1596/4466
dc.identifier.issn	1564-698X
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/10986/4466
dc.publisher	World Bank
dc.relation.ispartofseries	World Bank Economic Review
dc.rights	CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO
dc.rights.holder	World Bank
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo
dc.subject	banks
dc.subject	insurance
dc.subject	land use
dc.subject	Land Value
dc.subject	laws
dc.subject	market value
dc.subject	productivity
dc.subject	profitability
dc.subject	return on investment
dc.subject	transaction costs
dc.title	Is Land Titling in Sub-Saharan Africa Cost-Effective?	en
dc.title.alternative	Evidence from Madagascar	en
dc.type	Journal Article	en
dc.type	Article de journal	fr
dc.type	Artículo de revista	es
dspace.entity.type	Publication
okr.date.doiregistration	2025-05-06T11:36:06.557463Z
okr.doctype	Journal Article
okr.globalpractice	Social, Urban, Rural and Resilience
okr.globalpractice	Poverty
okr.globalpractice	Finance and Markets
okr.identifier.report	3
okr.language.supported	en
okr.pagenumber	461
okr.pagenumber	485
okr.pdfurl	wber_21_3_461.pdf	en
okr.peerreview	Academic Peer Review
okr.region.country	Madagascar
okr.region.geographical	Sub-Saharan Africa
okr.topic	Communities and Human Settlements
okr.topic	Poverty Reduction
okr.topic	Banks and Banking Reform
okr.topic	Finance and Financial Sector Development::Debt Markets
okr.topic	Communities and Human Settlements::Land Use and Policies
okr.topic	Rural Development::Rural Land Policies for Poverty Reduction
okr.topic	Rural Development::Common Property Resource Development
okr.volume	21
relation.isJournalIssueOfPublication	b95cbe89-7d17-488a-afcf-746a0a4dcfea
relation.isJournalIssueOfPublication.latestForDiscovery	b95cbe89-7d17-488a-afcf-746a0a4dcfea
relation.isJournalOfPublication	c41eae2f-cf94-449d-86b7-f062aebe893f
relation.isJournalVolumeOfPublication	5586d687-0acc-4416-ace0-8fcc3b13a63e