Poorly developed countries with weak institutions often face severe commitment problems. International investors are reluctant to invest in these countries because their property rights are insufficiently protected. We argue that in order to overcome the commitment problem countries may subject investors' rights protection to independent investment tribunals. These tribunals are known to strictly support property rights protection and to be reluctant to honor human rights considerations, although they might be applicable.

land reform, land distribution, wealth distribution

The restrictions that planning policies impose on retail development have significantly reduced the productivity of supermarkets, according to Paul Cheshire and colleagues. Land use regulation, regulatory costs, firm productivity, retail

This study aims to examine current land access and youth livelihood opportunities in Southern Ethiopia. Access to agricultural land is a constitutional right for rural residents of Ethiopia. We used survey data from the relatively land abundant districts of Oromia Region and from the land scarce districts of Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ (SNNP) Region. We found that youth in the rural south have limited potential to obtain agricultural land that can be a basis for viable livelihood. The law prohibits the purchase and sale of land in Ethiopia.

Opportunistic land encroachment, resulting from costly and incomplete enforcement of common land boundaries, is a problem in many less-developed countries. A multi-period model of such encroachment is presented in this paper. The model accounts explicitly for the cumulative effects of non-compliance of regulations designed to protect a finite, non-renewable resource - in this case common land - from private expropriation. Gradual evolution of property rights from common to private - the consequence of encroachment - is demonstrated to be an equilibrium.

In this paper we provide evidence of segmentation of the Dutch land markets by spatial planning into three compartments referring to agricultural, industrial and residential use. We analyze transactions of ready-to-be developed land provided by the Dutch Land Register (Kadaster) and find that residential land is much more expensive than industrial land. We also compare the prices observed in these transactions with prices for agricultural land in the vicinity and find that agricultural land is much cheaper than residential and industrial land.

"The government of Uganda, with help from its development partners, is designing and implementing policies and strategies to address poverty, land degradation, and declining agricultural productivity. Land degradation, especially soil erosion and depletion of soil nutrients, is widespread in Uganda and contributes to declining productivity, which in turn increases poverty.

Backward agriculture, inadequate farm income and absolute poverty have long characterized the economy of developing countries. Unequal distribution of agricultural land is often cited as a source of poverty and inefficiency in agriculture. However, much of literature on smallholders tends to address income inequality and (total) land size, while land inequality has been overlooked in those discourses. In view of filling the research gap, this paper provides a micro-level foundation for discussions on land inequality and food security in Laos as a case study for least developed countries.

Archaeological site mapping is important for both understanding the history and protecting the sites from excavation during developmental activities. As archaeological sites are generally spread over a large area, use of high spatial resolution remote sensing imagery is becoming increasingly applicable in the world. The main objective of this study is to map the land cover of the Itanos area of Crete and of its changes, with specific focus on the detection of the landscape’s archaeological features.

This paper analyzes the importance of legal property documents in providing tenure security, enhancing agricultural investment incentives and easing access to credit. While theory predicts that better property rights on land can increase investment through increased security, enhanced trade opportunities and increased collateral value of land, the presence and size of these effects depend crucially on whether those rights are properly enforced. In Nicaragua, a troubled history of land expropriation and invasion has undermined the credibility of the legal property regime.