There is well-known debate about the respective role of geography versus institutions in explaining the long term development of countries. These debates have usually been based on cross country regressions where questions about parameter heterogeneity, unobserved heterogeneity, and endogeneity...

This policy brief summarizes the scientific discussion about land deals and presents some initial empirical results from a field trip to a large land investment in Zambia. It is intended to serve as a background paper for the symposium session "Dealing with the Race for Agricultural Land" at the...