Land Titles and Rice Production in Vietnam

In most of the empirical literature on land titling, the household is regarded as unitary, and land rights are found to have ambiguous effects on land allocation, investment and productivity. Using data from 12 provinces in Vietnam, we diversify land titles, and show in a household fixed effects analysis of plot level rice yields that land titles are indeed important. Only exclusively held titles have the expected positive effects, and the positive effect on yields is found in male headed households. Furthermore, a household level rice yield function reveals that exclusive user rights are inefficiency decreasing, while jointly held user rights have no efficiency effects. Finally, once the gender of the head of household is controlled for, exclusively held female titles have a greater positive effect on the efficiency of the household than that of male held titles.