It is widely believed that land markets, including both land sales and tenancy markets, are neither efficient nor conducive to social equity. It is often argued that tenants, particularly share tenants, do not have proper incentives to work and invest, partly because of the disincentive effects...

This essay examines Hernando De Soto's work on property rights, which can be viewed as providing two separate testable hypotheses: 1) secure property rights are positively correlated with access to credit and capital formation, which leads to economic development, and 2) land titling programs...

I investigate how the first large-scale randomized-controlled trial of a land formalization reform in rural Western Africa affects villagers' cooperativeness and trust. With the reform, land plots traditionally characterized by collective property and informal possession are mapped, parcels...