Effects of land titling on child health and education

This paper analyzes the impact of land titling on child health and education in Argentina. The authors exploit a natural experiment in the allocation of land titles across squatters in a poor suburban area of Buenos Aires, Argentina, to evaluate the impact of property rights on child health and education outcomes. In addressing the effect of allocating urban land property rights in a manner that was exogeneous to characteristics of the squatters, the authors found that:children living in titled parcels enjoy better Weight-for-Height scores (a short-run measure of health status), lower teenage pregnancy rates, and lower school repetition grades than children living in untitled parcels.there were insignificant differences in Height-for-Age scores.The findings suggest that access to land titles allows families to improve their investments in human capital [adapted from author]