Land Titles and Conflicts in Guatemala

1. Land Titles and Conflicts in Guatemala Karen Macours SAIS-Johns Hopkins University

2. Effects of land titling ? • Mixed evidence to date • Different reasons: • Effect of title depends on other factors • Other market imperfections (Carter and Olinto, Boucher et al.) • Formal versus informal property rights (Braselle et al., Lanjouw and Levy) ~ titles do not necessarily increase property rights security ~ other factors affecting security (rule of law, conflict resolution, … ) might matter • Problems with identification

3. Contribution of this paper • Relationship between the impact of land titles depend on conflicts and conflict resolution mechanisms • Potential lessons for targeting • Instrument exploiting correlations resulting from historical land title processes

4. Titles and conflicts in Guatemala • Long-standing conflicts related to land access • Weak rule-of-law • Customary conflict resolution mechanisms => Widespread property rights insecurity

5. History of land titling (1) • Late 19th century: coffee boom • government encouraged transformation from community to private property • Titling through application by individual possessors or community authority • Some communities/owners applied, others didn’t • Some communities lost (part of) their land to outsiders, who obtained title or not • Geographic correlation of title status

6. History of land titling (2) • Systematic titling efforts since then have not affected the regions of study • But: Ley de titulacion Supletoria => individuals can claim titles based on “10 year peaceful possession” => Current title status not exogenous

7. Data • 20 communities, 2 regions • Info on 1822 households and all their plots • Geographic location of all the plots (community maps) • Detailed information about community conflicts and conflict resolution mechanisms • Information obtained through key informants ~ sensitivity of information on land and conflicts

8. Outcome variables

9. Conflicts and conflict resolution (1)

10. Conflicts and conflict resolution (2) • No clear pattern of different institutions specializing in certain conflicts • Conflict resolution mechanisms do not show clear patterns in duration, intensity, or the number of actors involved • Instead: different communities rely disproportionally on different mechanisms

11. Conflicts and conflict resolution (3)

12. Identification • Title status plot mostly determined at end of 19th century • Since then: land fragmentized among many owners, … • But title status of neighboring plots still correlated with each other • Use average title status of upto 5 neighboring plots (from different owners) as instrument • Should be uncorrelated to many landlord and plot characteristics • Control for plot characteristics that might be spatially correlated (and possible related to title status) • Control for family background and other characteristics of the owner

13. First stage

14. Efficiency of plot use: Lin. Prob.

15. Efficiency of plot use: IV

16. Extensive plot use: Lin. Prob.

17. Extensive plot use: IV

18. Credit access

19. Conflicts, title and efficiency of plot use

20. Conflicts, title and extensive plot use

21. Preliminary Conclusions • Effects of titles on credit does not depend on conflicts • Effects of titles on efficiency of plot use depends on conflict-context • Titles matter (more) for efficiency when conflicts are longer and when conflicts get resolved by community mechanisms • Intriguing pattern: titles are negatively related to efficiency when conflicts typically resolved by outside authorities