Land titling and property rights have been the central tenant of agricultural and rural development policy for many years since land is one of the key assets for production of agricultural goods and services. Land titling facilitates access to credit through collateral arrangement, thereby...

This paper evaluates the impact of a rural land administration program in Ecuador on female empowerment and household food security. Using a double robust estimation that combines the difference-in-difference approach with inverse probability weighting, we explore whether receiving a...

This paper examines the effect of women's effective land ownership on female empowerment and household food security in the context of Peruvian family farming. Using an instrumental variable approach, we explore whether self-declared informal ownership of plots provides women with increased...

We study the effect of the fragmentation of intellectual property rights on optimal patent design. The major finding is that when several complementary innovative components must be assembled to operate a new technology, the patentability requirements should be stronger than in the case of...

This paper presents an integrated overview of the literature linking institutions, financial development and economic growth. From the large body of research on institutional development, the paper first selects those contributions that make it possible to study the role of institutional...

Over a quarter of the world's population lives in economies that have undertaken transitions from central planning to market economies. These transitions entail far-reaching and complex changes in social, economic and political institutions and have had widely divergent outcomes. Important...

The current Ethiopian government originated in a Marxist revolutionary movement, which early in its struggle against the Derg regime recognized the widespread discrimination against women in Ethiopian society and placed gender emancipation at the centre of its revolutionary strategy. While...