Gender-Differentiated Impacts of Tenure Insecurity on Agricultural Performance in Malawi's Customary Tenure Systems | Land Portal

Resource information

Date of publication: 
January 2017
Resource Language: 
ISBN / Resource ID: 
handle:10986/25952
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Copyright details: 
World Bank

Many African countries rely on sporadic land transfers from customary to statutory domains to attract investment and improve agricultural performance. Data from 15,000 smallholders and 800 estates in Malawi allow exploring the long-term effects of such a strategy. The results suggest that (i) most estates are less productive than smallholders; (ii) fear of land loss, although not exclusively due to estates, is associated with a 12 percent productivity loss for females, which is large enough to finance a low-cost tenure regularization program; and (iii) failure to collect realistic land rents implies public revenue losses of up to US$50 million per year.

Authors and Publishers

Author(s), editor(s), contributor(s): 

Deininger, Klaus
Xia, Fang
Holden, Stein

Publisher(s): 

The World Bank is a vital source of financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world. We are not a bank in the ordinary sense but a unique partnership to reduce poverty and support development.

Data provider

The World Bank is a vital source of financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world. We are not a bank in the ordinary sense but a unique partnership to reduce poverty and support development.

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