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The Profits of Power: Land Rights and Agricultural Investment in Ghana

This study examines the relationship between land rights and agricultural investment in Ghana's Eastern Region, focusing on the impact of complex, negotiable property rights on agricultural productivity. The findings highlight the skewed distribution of returns due to inequality of property rights, particularly for women. The research also explores the political economy of land allocation within matrilineages, emphasizing that the process of acquiring and defending land rights is inherently a political process based on power relations. The study concludes by emphasizing the significant cost associated with these complex land tenure systems and the barriers they create for agricultural investment and productivity.

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The Profits of Power: Land Rights and Agricultural Investment in Ghana

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  1. The Profits of Power:Land Rights and Agricultural Investment in Ghana Markus Goldstein, The World Bank Christopher Udry, Yale

  2. Institutions • Institutions are not static in purpose nor their impact on the distribution of economic opportunity • Institutionsproperty rightsinvestment incentives • Inequality of property rightsskewed distribution of returns

  3. Our work • Looks at this relationship in the context of Ghana’s Eastern Region • Complex, negotiable property rights agricultural productivity • Lower productivity for those not connected to the political hierarchy (which includes most women)

  4. Land tenure in W Africa • Berry: "the commercialisation of land transactions has not led to the consolidation of land rights into forms of exclusive individual or corporate control comparable to Western notions of private property” • Indeed, land "is subject to multiple, overlapping claims and ongoing debate over these claims' legitimacy and their implications for land use and the distribution of revenue“

  5. Agriculture in Akwapim • Sources of land: • Chiefs: stool land, dispute resolution, allocation • Lineage (abusua): right to use ancestors land • individual (mostly matrilineal inheritance) • Family-stool nexus • Range of contracts • Farm mostly maize and cassava • Men and women farm separate, multiple plots • Shifting cultivations, so fallowing is key investment

  6. The data • 2 year rural household survey • Around 240 hhs in 4 village clusters, men and women interviewed separately • 15 interviews, about 5-6 weeks apart • Modular survey (35) with detailed ag production data • GPS, Ph and OM • Focus groups

  7. Empirical strategy • Within hh profits (fallow matters) • Determinants of fallow (politics matters) • Political economy of land allocation within a matrilineage (need with imperfect information)

  8. Within household production -efficient production predicts that identical plots, within a household, will have identical yields

  9. Land and the matrilineage • Allocated land evolved in time of land abundance (no optimal fallow issues) • Focus groups: • Abusua allocates on need • Leaving land fallow indicates lack of need • Need is private information, fallow is signal • Incomplete information (off-farm work, spouse evidence)

  10. Sketch of model of abusua allocation • Leadership has obligation to provide land to those in “need” • Have alternate use but also incur costs when enough poor do not get it • Need is not-observable (off-farm income opportunities) • Cultivation requirement to separate rich/poor, rich won’t sacrifice off-farm to cultivate continuously

  11. Conclusion • We agree “the process of acquiring and defending rights in land is inherently a political process based on power relations among members of a social group” (B&C) • However, these complex, multiple and overlapping rights are associated with barriers to investment in land fertility • Particularly for women

  12. With a significant cost • Most farmers would increase steady state output 20-50% with one more year of fallow. • Approx 434,000 hectares of land in Ghana is planted to maize and cassava in Regions with likely similar land tenure • This gain would be about 1.4-2.1% of 1997 GDP, 13-19% of national poverty gap • But institutions don’t arise in a vacuum: weigh this against the safety net

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