This paper studies the evolution of the rural non-farm sector in India and its contribution to the decline of poverty. It scrutinizes evidence from a series of nationally representative sample surveys and confronts findings from these sources against the experience of poverty decline in a...

Does the distribution of land rights affect the choice of contractible techniques? I present evidence suggesting that Nicaraguan farmers are more likely to grow effort-intensive crops on owned rather than on rented plots. I consider two theoretical arguments that illustrate why property rights...

We model residential land use constraints as the outcome of a political economy game between owners of developed and owners of undeveloped land. Land use constraints benefit the former group (via increasing property prices) but hurt the latter (via increasing development costs). More desirable...

We model residential land use constraints as the outcome of a political economy game between owners of developed and owners of undeveloped land. Land use constraints are interpreted as shadow taxes that increase the land rent of already developed plots and reduce the amount of new housing...

This paper analyses the empirical determinants of contract length, a key and yet neglected dimension of contractual structure. I use data on tenancy agreements signed between 1870 and 1880 in the district of Siracusa, Italy to estimate the choice over length and compensation schemes jointly. The...

Homeowners have incentives to control and limit local land development and anecdotic evidence suggests that ‘homevoters’ indeed actively support restrictive measures. Yet, US metro area level homeownership rates are strongly negatively related to corresponding measures of the restrictiveness...

Office space in Britain is the most expensive in the world and regulatory constraints are the obvious explanation. We estimate the ‘regulatory tax’ for 14 British office locations from 1961 to 2005. These are orders of magnitude greater than estimates for Manhattan condominiums or office...

Office space in Britain is the most expensive in the world and regulatory constraints are the obvious explanation. We estimate the ‘regulatory tax’ for 14 British office locations from 1961 to 2005. These are orders of magnitude greater than estimates for Manhattan condominiums or office...