The Coase theorem emphasizes the role transactions costs play in efficient market outcomes. We document inefficient outcomes, in the presence of a transactions cost, in southern California land markets and the corresponding transition to efficient outcomes after the transactions cost is eliminated. In the late 1800s, Palm Springs, CA was evenly divided, in a checkerboard fashion, and property rights assigned in alternating blocks to the Agua Caliente tribe and a non-Indian landowner by the US Federal government.

This paper establishes that the Caloric Suitability Index (CSI) dominates the commonly used measure of agricultural suitability in the examination of the effect of land productivity on comparative economic development. The analysis demonstrates that the agricultural suitability index does not capture the large variation in the potential caloric yield across equally suitable land, reflecting the fact that land suitable for agriculture is not necessarily suitable for the most caloric-intensive crops.

This paper examines the various ways local land conflicts affect sustainable land-use planning in peri-urban Ghana. In recent years, rapid urbanisation has resulted a high demand for customary lands for housing development in peri-urban areas in Ghana. Customary lands are continuously converted into housing uses; leading to eviction of indigenes from their farmlands. A mixed method approach was used to collect data from 40 participants from the research site, Aburaso.

Dans le massif  forestier du Sud-ouest de la République Centrafricaine, la terre  représente,  une  richesse inaliénable pour les peuples autochtones Aka. C’est de la terre,  que les Aka communément appelés pygmées,  tirent l’essentiel  de leurs  subsistances. Raison pour laquelle, les ressources foncières  ont fait l’objet d’attention particulière de ces  premiers occupants   du terroir, qui les ont régies par des normes juridico traditionnelles. Ces règles, quoique  fondées sur l’oralité, requiert  une valeur juridique, dont l’observance s’impose à toute la communauté.

The livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people, particularly the rural poor, are based on secure and equitable access to and control over land and natural resources which are in turn the source of food and shelter, the basis for social, cultural and religious practices, and a central factor in economic growth.

Denial of women in land entitlements especially in patriarchal societies has been a major development concern in Ghana, resulting in promulgation of legal establishments that seek to enhance equality in access to land. This paper examines the underlying factors for gender inequality in land access and usage despite laws established to bridge the gap. Interviews with land custodians and households in North-Western Ghana revealed the desire to preserve cultural heritage as the primary reason for non-inclusion of women in access rights.