This research advances the hypothesis that natural land productivity in the past, and its effect on the desirable level of cooperation in the agricultural sector, had a persistent effect on the evolution of social capital, the process of industrialization and comparative economic development across the globe.

Africa's biofuel potential over the last ten years has increasingly attracted foreign investors’ attention. We estimate the determinants of foreign investors land demand for biofuel production in SSA, using Poisson specifications of the gravity model. Our estimates suggest that land availability, abundance of water resources and weak land governance are significant determinants of large-scale land acquisitions for biofuel production.

This article develops a methodology for the evaluation of land administration systems. We propose a set of quantitative and qualitative indicators with benchmarks for each one of them that signal possible venues to improve the administration’s structure and budgetary/management arrangements, in order to bring about the following goals: (1) to contribute to public sector financing through taxes; (2) to encourage the productive and sustainable use of land, and (3) to facilitate access to land for low-income citizens.

agricultural cooperatives, income, land, land utilization

Belarus has preserved its third position in Registering Property in the World Bank’s Doing Business 2014 report. Constant improvement of property registration procedures has allowed Belarus to achieve that. The Registering Property indicator takes into account three factors: the number of procedures required to transfer rights to property, the time spent on completing all the necessary procedures and the cost of procedures. From ”The Earth Summit“ in Brazil 1992 sustainable development recognized by almost all societies as one of the major global goals.

"One of the lingering effects of the food price crisis of 2007–08 on the world food system is the proliferating acquisition of farmland in developing countries by other countries seeking to ensure their food supplies. Increased pressures on natural resources, water scarcity, export restrictions imposed by major producers when food prices were high, and growing distrust in the functioning of regional and global markets have pushed countries short in land and water to find alternative means of producing food.

"Land grabbing" or, less emotionally charged, large-scale land acquisitions (LSLA), which occur mainly in the Global South, have become the center of a heated political and academic debate. So far, economists have mostly abstained from this debate. This may possibly be explained by the fact that they view these kind of deals in land property primarily as an opportunity for improved local economic development in poor countries. Arguably, foreign investors are then assumed to be able to utilize arable, but mostly idle land more efficiently than locals (cf., e.g., Deininger/Byerlee, 2011).

The analysis of land investment and tenure security usually assumes land scarcity. However, some developing countries have communities with land abundance. This article therefore examines the effects of land abundance for investment and tenure security. The paper develops a formal test of land abundance and estimates a system of three simultaneous equations. The empirical analysis uncovers significant land abundance in Northern Mozambique. In contrast to the literature, area farmed is a determinant of investment and tenure security.

While most studies looking at the consequences of tenurial insecurity on land markets in developing countries focus on the effects of tenurial insecurity on the investment behavior of landowners, this paper studies the hitherto unexplored relationship between tenurial insecurity and contract choice in land tenancy.

Land governance can be briefly described as how property rights to land, for groups or individuals, are defined, enforced, can be exchanged, and transformed. Land governance is argued to be a key to sustainable development and poverty reduction. In India, as well as in Bihar, land has enormous economic, social, and symbolic relevance. The present paper is an attempt to understand the issue of land governance from different perspective.

We study the effect of large-scale land acquisitions on the risk of ethnic tensions for a sample of 133 countries for the 2000-2012 period. Running a series of fractional response models, we find that more land grabbing activity is associated with a higher risk of ethnic tensions, indicating that the negative effects of land deals outweigh their potential benefits. In addition to that, we also show that democratic institutions may moderate the relationship between land deals and ethnic tensions.