This paper is motivated by the emphasis
on secure property rights as a determinant of economic
development in recent literature. The authors use village
and household level information from about 800 villages
throughout China to explore whether legal reform increased
protection of land rights against unauthorized reallocation
or expropriation with below-average compensation by the
state. The analysis provides nation-wide evidence on a

Land reform can broadly be divided into
land tenure reform-the establishment of secure and
formalized property rights in land-and land
redistribution-the transfer of land from large to small
farmers. The paper is therefore divided into two chapters.
The first chapter gives a short narrative of some of the key
land tenure and land policy issues. While these issues
remain politically sensitive, there is a solid consensus

Land is the integrating component of all
livelihoods depending on farm, forest, rangeland, or water
(rivers, lakes, coastal marine) habitats. Due to varying
political, social, and economic factors, the heavy use of
natural resources to supply a rapidly growing global
population and economy has resulted in the unintended
mismanagement and degradation of land and ecosystems. This
book provides strategic focus to the implementation of

This book examines issues at the
forefront of the debate on land law reform, pays particular
attention to how reform options affect the poor and
disadvantaged, and recommends strategies for alleviating
poverty more effectively through land law reform. It reviews
the role of the World Bank in land law reform, examining
issues of process as well as substance. It also identifies
key challenges and directions, and stresses the need to

Although many African countries have
recently adopted highly innovative and pro-poor land laws,
lack of implementation thwarts their potentially
far-reaching impact on productivity, poverty reduction, and
governance. The authors use a representative household
survey from Ethiopia where, over a short period,
certificates to more than 20 million plots were issued to
describe the certification process, explore its incidence

Greenhouse gas emissions are largely determined by how energy is created and used, and policies designed to encourage mitigation efforts reflect this reality. However, an unintended consequence of an energy-focused strategy is that the set of policy instruments needed to tap mitigation opportunities in agriculture is incomplete. In particular, market-linked incentives to achieve mitigation targets are disconnected from efforts to better manage carbon sequestered in agricultural land.

This paper reviews empirical findings
from economic analyses of the role of gender equality and
women's empowerment in reducing poverty and stimulating
growth. Going beyond the large literature documenting the
impact of female education on a range of development
outcomes, the paper presents evidence on the impact of
women's access to markets (labor, land, and credit) and
women's decision-making power within households on

This book grew out of the Global Issues
seminars and is itself a testament to that two-way dialogue:
the suggestion to compile the speakers' lecture notes
into a book came from the students themselves. Both the
seminars and this book reflect the Bank's conviction
that the seemingly intractable problems of our globalizing
world-from entrenched poverty, to climate change, to new
infectious diseases such as AIDS and avian flu-can be

This study examines the constraints on
the housing sector in Afghanistan. It evaluates government
policy on housing, looks at the state of housing finance,
and examines legal and regulatory barriers with a bearing on
the housing market. The report provides policy
recommendations aimed at helping to develop a private-sector
led housing market. To assist in formulating policies and
implementing actions, the study recommends forming a housing

This paper presents a framework for
analyzing tropical deforestation and reforestation using the
von Thunen model as its starting point: land is allocated to
the use which yields the highest rent, and the rents of
various land uses are determined by location. Forest cover
change therefore becomes a question of changes in rent of
forest versus non-forest use. While this is a simple and
powerful starting point, more intriguing issues arise when

The World Bank Group recognizes the
critical importance of women's contribution to shared
economic growth, especially in Africa. Women's
important contribution to economic activity in Tanzania is
well recognized: In the 2006 World Economic Forum Global
Gender Gap report Tanzania was ranked number 1 globally, out
of 115 countries, in terms of women's economic
participation. This paper includes the following headings:

This study provides strategic
orientations and recommendations for Bank client countries
and suggests approaches for the Bank's role in a
rapidly changing industry with high economic potential. It
identifies priorities and options for policy adjustments,
catalytic investments, and entry points for the Bank and
other investors to foster environmentally friendly,
wealth-creating, and sustainable aquaculture. The objectives