This paper uses Ethiopian data to explore credit rationing in semi-formal credit markets and its effects on farmers'resource allocation and crop productivity. Credit rationing -- both voluntarily and involuntarily -- is found to be widespread in the sampled rural villages, largely because of...

Despite strong beliefs that property titling and registration will enhance credit access, empirical evidence in support of such effects remains scant. The gradual roll-out of computerization of land registry systems across Andhra Pradesh's 387 sub-registry offices allows us to combine quarterly...

Although the potentially negative impacts of credit constraints on economic development have long been discussed conceptually, empirical evidence for Africa remains limited. This study uses a direct elicitation approach for a national sample of Rwandan rural households to assess empirically the...

Despite their potential importance and ease of modification, impacts of monitoring and loan recovery arrangements on micro-credit groups'repayment performance have rarely been studied. Data on 3,350 expired group loans in 300 Indian villages highlight that regular monitoring and audits, high...

Despite the popularity and unique nature of women's self-help groups in India, evidence of their economic impacts is scant. Based on two rounds of a 2,400 household panel, the authors use double differences, propensity score matching, and pipeline comparison to assess economic impacts of longer...

The 2007-2008 upsurge in agricultural commodity prices gave rise to widespread concern about investors causing a"global land rush". Large land deals can provide opportunities for better access to capital, transfer of technology, and advances in productivity and employment generation. But they...

Although transfer of agricultural land ownership through land reform had positive impacts on productivity, investment, and political empowerment in many cases, institutional arrangements in West Bengal -- which made tenancy heritable and imposed a prohibition on subleasing -- imply that early...

In agrarian societies land serves as the main means not only for generating a livelihood but often also for accumulating wealth and transferring it between generations. How land rights are assigned therefore determines households'ability to generate subsistence and income, their social and...

Political outcomes - such as agricultural taxation, subsidization, and the provision of public goods - result from political bargaining among interest groups. Such bargaining is likely to be efficiency-enhancing and growth-enhancing when equally powerful interest groups - aware of the...

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...