Land Rights and Economic Development : Evidence from Vietnam

The authors examine the impact of land
reform in Vietnam which gives households the power to
exchange, transfer, lease, inherit, and mortgage their
land-use rights. The authors expect this change to increase
the incentives as well as the ability to undertake long-term
investments on the part of households. Their
difference-in-differences estimation strategy takes
advantage of the variation across provinces in the issuance
of land-use certificates needed to enforce these rights. The
results indicate that the additional land rights led to
significant increases in the share of total area devoted to
multi-year crops, as well as some increase in irrigation
investment. These effects are stronger in areas that felt
the impact of the land reform earlier.