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

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

This paper uses Ethiopian data to
explore credit rationing in semi-formal credit markets and
its effects on farmers' resource allocation and crop
productivity. Credit rationing -- both voluntarily and
involuntarily -- is found to be widespread in the sampled
rural villages, largely because of risk-related factors.
Political and social networks emerge as key determinants of
access to credit among smallholder, peasant farmers.

Doing Business 2007: How to reform is
the fourth in a series of annual reports investigating the
regulations that enhance business activity and those that
constrain it. Doing Business presents quantitative
indicators on business regulations and the protection of
property rights that can be compared across 175
economies-from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe-and over time. This
publication points out how regulations affecting 10 areas of

The Ghana Country Environment Analysis
(CEA) has thus been formulated to assist the Government of
Ghana and its development partners to: (a) assess the
country's environmental priorities in key sectors, the
environmental implications of key economic and sector
policies, and the country's institutional capacity to
address them; and (b) find practical management,
institutional, and policy solutions to handle issues of

Bangladesh has recorded impressive
economic and social gains since the 1990s. Recent growth has
been at levels close to six percent. The country has doubled
per capita growth and taken large strides toward reaching
many Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), ahead of many
comparable countries. Attaining the MDGs calls for
accelerating economic growth to six-seven percent a year.
Accordingly, Bangladesh's Poverty Reduction Strategy

This report aims to assist the
government in improving implementation of the New Socialist
Countryside (NSC) program, especially in raising the
effectiveness of public expenditures, and the harmonization
of public finance. While this report pays particular
attention to rural aspects of public finance, it addresses
this topic within the overall framework of intergovernmental
finance that impacts both rural and urban areas. Similarly,

The objective of the Botswana Investment
Climate Assessment (ICA) is to evaluate the investment
climate in Botswana in all its operational dimensions and
promote policies to strengthen the private sector. The
investment climate is made up of the many location specific
factors that shape the opportunities and incentives for
firms to invest productively, create jobs, and expand. These
factors include macroeconomic and regulatory policies; the

Although early attempts at land titling
in Africa were often unsuccessful, the need to secure rights
in view of increased demand for land, options for
registration of a continuum of individual or communal rights
under new laws, and the scope for reducing costs by
combining information technology with participatory methods
have led to renewed interest. This paper uses a
difference-in-difference approach to assess economic impacts

Stakeholders' perceptions of
opportunities and constraints to sustainable land management
in Ethiopia was assessed through interviews and a review of
secondary data. Stakeholders included farmers as well as
representatives of development agencies, agricultural
organizations, donors, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs),
and agricultural research systems. Stakeholders generally
perceive that the numerous, well-intentioned but piecemeal