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Property and Land Rights

Chapter 4: Case studies on Bangladesh and Mozambique

The Institutional Diagnostic Project case study on Bangladesh and Mozambique is an attempt to explain the paradox of sustainability of the former and the disappointed hopes of the growth of the latter.

Case Studies Synthesis (RA4)

This presentation reviews and summaries results from research done under RA4 research theme of our programme.

Institutional Diagnostic Synthesis (RA2)- Presentation

Outline of the presentation Objective, methodology and development of the project The synthesis volume and concluding chapters a) Identifying obstacles to development: economic perspective b) Identifying institutional obstacles: the role of politics c) Identifying institutional obstacles: state capacity and property…

Appraising institutional challenges in the early stages of development- Chapter 10: Conclusion

Two central lessons can be drawn from the foregoing analysis. First, many institutional failures are traceable to the way politics functions. Therefore, any diagnosis or understanding of the impediments to a country’s long-term development that overlooks the country’s political economy…

Chapter 9: Identifying institutional obstacles to structural transformation: state capacity and property rights

After having examined the role of politics (in last chapter) in spurring or slowing down structural transformation and development, we are now ready to probe the issue of state capacity. This will complete our discussion of the role of governance-related…

Chapter 8: Identifying institutional obstacles to structural transformation: the role of politics

In this chapter, the focus is on issues that involve politics. More specifically, we look at the role of political leadership and state autonomy in development. The institutions involved determine the quality of governance in a country, but they are…

Chapter 6: Taiwan’s development miracle

There are several reasons why development scholars should be interested in the case of Taiwan. As one author has written: ‘It once had a single dominant party following the Leninist model; it now has a competitive multiparty system. It was…

Chapter 5: South Korea in the early days of its takeoff

‘What would have been the conclusion of an institutional diagnostic of the development potential of South Korea conducted in the mid- or late-1970s, at a time when the country was still a low-income country, at roughly the same income level…

Chapter 3: Case studies on Benin and Tanzania

There are several reasons why Benin is an interesting country to study, and some of them have no doubt contributed to making it an aid darling for many donors. First, although it is made up of an extraordinarily varied mosaic…

Appraising institutional challenges in the early stages of development: Introduction to part 2

At the core of the institutional diagnostic project is the idea that we can gain more knowledge about the role of institutions by undertaking in-depth country case studies than by carrying out broad quantitative exercises based on a large sample…

Chapter 2: Methodological framework for an institutional diagnostic

The preceding chapter defined the objective of the institutional diagnostics of each particular country and made explicit the concepts and analytical principles that need to be mobilised in order to conduct such an exercise. By providing a short description of…

Chapter 1: Institutions and institutional change: concepts and theories

The ‘institutions matter’ slogan appears today as a fundamental truth about development. Widely shared by the development community, including international organisations, it goes with the idea that the benefits of both market operations and state interventions are significantly conditioned by…

Appraising institutional challenges in the early stages of development

If there is absolutely no doubt that institutions matter for development, and for development policies and strategies in the first place, the crucial issue is knowing how they matter. After all, impressive economic development achievements have been observed despite the…

Community Forest Management: The Story behind a Success Story from Nepal

Since 1993, Nepal implemented one of the most ambitious and comprehensive program of decentralization of forest management in the world, widely considered as a success story in terms of participatory management of natural resources. Using quasi-experimental methods, we first quantify…

On the Political Economy of Land Reform

We develop an approach to understand the role of autocratic land reforms to prevent democratic change. The autocrat confiscates and redistributes land in an attempt to secure his power, exploiting the endogenous social identities and loyalty in the population. The…

Community Forestry Management: Mechanisms behind a success story in Nepal

Over the past 25 years, the government of Nepal implemented one of the most ambitious and comprehensive programs of decentralization of forest management in the world. This major institutional change resulted in the transfer of the management of almost 50%…

Policy brief: A Theory of Power Structure and Institutional Compatibility: China vs. Europe revisited

Throughout history, Rulers have always faced challenges to their rule. These challenges came either from outside aggressors, popular uprisings or Elite conspiracies. The ability of Rulers to respond to these challenges has varied a lot across countries and across time….

A theory of power structure and institutional compatibility: China vs. Europe revisited

Abstract: Historical narratives suggest that general differences exist in the power structure of society between Imperial China and Premodern Europe: the Ruler enjoyed a weaker absolute power in Europe, while in China the People were more on par with the…

Economic persistence in face of adversity: Evidence from Kyrgyz tribes through Soviet times

Abstract: We study the role of traditional institutions of tribes and clans – large groups of people sharing an identity based on common lineage – in determining long-run differences in economic trajectories at sub-national level. Using a combination of rich…

Measuring the potential for property taxation in Dakar, Senegal

Abstract: Property taxes are in theory easy to enforce in their simplest form due to their tangible tax base, and are considered an equitable means to raise revenue in low-income countries. In spite of these features, African countries, where cities…

Economic persistence despite adverse policies: Evidence from Kyrgyzstan

Abstract: We study the long-run persistence of relative economic well-being in the face of highly adverse government policies using a combination of rich historical and contemporaneous data sources from Kyrgyzstan. Even after controlling for unobservable local effects, the economic well-being…

Bangladesh Institutional Diagnostic – Chapter 9

Bangladesh Institutional Diagnostic Chapter 9: Institutional challenges in land administration and management in Bangladesh Chapter Overview List of tables and figures Glossary Introduction Consequences of land scarcity and inefficient land management Overview of the land laws and policies in Bangladesh…

Bangladesh Institutional Diagnostic – Chapter 10

Bangladesh Institutional Diagnostic Chapter 10: Political economy analysis of the role of the judiciary in land dispossession litigation in Bangladesh Chapter Overview Table of contents List of tables and figures List of abbreviations Glossary Introduction The effectiveness of the judiciary…

Research Insight: Asset ownership and female empowerment: Evidence from a natural experiment in Pakistan

The literature shows that women do not have an equal share in wealth as men, even within the same household, where large inequalities exist in ownership of land and productive assets. Women’s increased control of resources has been shown to…

Women’s land rights and village councils in Tanzania

Abstract: This paper studies the land property rights of married women using a diagnostic survey on women’s land property rights and Village Councils in rural Tanzania (VI-LART). Women own little property independently of their husbands. This puts them at particular…

Why do land rights matter?

Sylvie Lambert (Paris School of Economics), Garance Genicot (Georgetown University), and Markus Goldstein (World Bank) discuss the significance of ensuring land rights to economic activity in the agricultural sectory in the Congo Basin, how securing land rights for women is…

Individualization of Property Rights And Population Pressure (Democratic Republic Of Congo)

Abstract: This paper investigates how social norms related to land conversion may evolve to accommodate greater scarcity, by taking advantage of data collected in the Equateur Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as historical events that introduced…

Benin – History and Political Economy of Land Administration Reform

This publication is part of the Benin Institutional Diagnostic. This chapter deals with the issue of land tenure, which has been identified by the research coordinators as one of the major institutional problems in Benin. It deals more specifically with…

Event: “Sharing Solutions” – Credit and land titling in Uganda

Michael O’ Sullivan from the World Bank presents research on “Relaxing credit constraints and tenure insecurity in imperfect markets.” The project motivation arises from recognition that in the absence of well-functioning markets for land, credit and insurance, farming households are…

Tanzania Institutional Diagnostic – Synthesis

Tanzania Institutional Diagnostic Chapter 8: Synthesis This chapter provides a synthesis of information and arguments developed in the first seven chapters of the Tanzania Institutional Diagnostic. Chapter outline Part 1.  The basic institutional constraints on Tanzanian development The main challenges…

Tanzania Institutional Diagnostic – Chapter 6

Tanzania Institutional Diagnostic Chapter 6: Land Rights Chapter outline Overview A brief historical perspective on land tenure issues Legal land tenure in Tanzania according to the 1999 Land Act Rights of occupancy Land transformation by the state and the issue…

Tanzania Institutional Diagnostic – Chapter 1

Tanzania Institutional Diagnostic Chapter 1: Reflections on the political and economic development of Tanzania Chapter outline A short account of the political history of Tanzania The colonial era The German colonisation The British mandate on Tanganyika Independence Forging a nation: the…

Relaxing credit and tenure security constraints

“Relaxing credit and tenure security constraints: Credit and land titling in Uganda” A presentation by Michael O’Sullivan (with contributions from Maitreesh Ghatak, Markus Goldstein, James Habyarimana, Joao Montalvao, Christopher Udry) This presentation was part of the convening event hosted by…

Formal and Informal Market Institutions: Embeddedness

Market exchange involves many cognitive and non-cognitive processes, e.g., search, inference, prediction, negotiation. Much attention has been devoted to these issues both in theory and in experimental economics. I focus on the enforcement of market transactions against opportunistic behavior. I…

Institutions for Infrastructure in Developing Countries

The paper surveys the very heterogeneous economic literature on the scope and limits of efforts to match institutional constraints and needs, on the one hand, and infrastructure policy and project designs, on the other, to increase the odds of improving…

Institutions, Firm Financing and Growth

This paper reviews and synthesizes current knowledge on the role of institutions on firm financing and growth in developing countries. First, the paper presents stylized facts on the different institutional constraints under which firms in developing countries operate. Next, the…

Finance, Institutions and Development: Literature Survey and Research Agenda

This paper takes stock of and provides a critical review of several literatures, notably the theoretical and empirical work on finance and growth and studies on the determinants of financial development. These two literatures are linked as the sustainable expansion…

Institutions, the environment, and development

Environmental problems may be classified by the scale of the relevant externalities. Some externalities are primarily local, for example, those concerning the management of resources like forests, pastures and inland fisheries, or local air and water pollution. Others are mainly regional…

At the Intersection: A Review of Institutions in Economic Development

We present accepted basic arguments on the role of institutions in development and then discuss the corresponding empirical evidence in support (or not) of those arguments. Methodologically, our emphasis is on experimental evidence wherever available, and thematically we focus on…

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