Cookies?
Library Header Image
LSE Research Online LSE Library Services

Communal land and agricultural productivity

Gottlieb, Charles and Grobovsek, Jan (2015) Communal land and agricultural productivity. CFM discussion paper series (CFM-DP2015-13). Centre For Macroeconomics, London, UK.

[img]
Preview
Text - Published Version
Download (420kB) | Preview

Abstract

This paper quantifies the aggregate impact of communal land tenure arrangements that prevail in Sub-Saharan Africa. Such tenure regimes limit land transferability by prohibiting sales, subjecting rented-out land to the risk of expropriation, and redistributing it to existing farmers in a progressive fashion. We use a general equilibrium two-sector selection model featuring agents heterogeneous in skills to compute the resulting occupational and operational choices as well as land allocations. The quantification of the model is based on policies deduced from Ethiopia. In the Sub-Saharan African context we find that such policies substantially dampen nominal agricultural relative to non-agricultural productivity, by 25%. Real relative agricultural productivity, however, only falls by 4% since cross-sectoral terms of trade adjust strongly, with excess agricultural employment only amounting to some 1.5 percentage points. The loss in GDP is small, about 2%. That serves as a reminder that ostensibly highly distortionary policies need not have substantial bite when individuals strategically adjust to them and equilibrium prices adapt. For example, the model predicts that at given prices 62% of farmers in an economy such as Ethiopia would leave farming if tenure were secured, casting land insecurity as a major obstacle. Yet only 9% would actually switch sectors after price adjustments are factored in.

Item Type: Monograph (Discussion Paper)
Official URL: http://www.centreformacroeconomics.ac.uk/Home.aspx
Additional Information: © 2015 The Authors
Divisions: Centre for Macroeconomics
Subjects: H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory
JEL classification: O - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development
O - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O13 - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Energy; Environment; Other Primary Products
O - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth > O4 - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity > O40 - General
O - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth > O5 - Economywide Country Studies > O55 - Africa
Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q1 - Agriculture > Q15 - Land Ownership and Tenure; Land Reform; Land Use; Irrigation
Date Deposited: 14 Dec 2017 11:22
Last Modified: 15 Sep 2023 23:38
URI: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/86311

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

View more statistics