Insecure property rights and plant varieties: the effects on the market for seeds and on farmers in Argentina.

AbstractHernando de Soto attributes the poor economic performance of developing countries to insecure property rights. When property rights are not well-defined individuals do not have the incentives to invest in capital, and assets cannot be used as collateral, hindering capital formation and economic growth. This paper tests de Soto's hypothesis empirically by examining how the security of property rights impacts wealth, collateral, and capital formation across nations. Using several different measures and model specifications, we find support for de Soto's conjecture. Our results suggest that better defined property rights would result in substantial improvements in capital formation and economic growth in developing countries.

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Deforestation and land use under insecure property rights

Environment and Development Economics ◽

10.1017/s1355770x0800483x ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 14 (3) ◽

pp. 281-303 ◽

Cited By ~ 29

Author(s):

GREGORY S. AMACHER ◽

ERKKI KOSKELA ◽

MARKKU OLLIKAINEN

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Property Rights ◽

Native Forest ◽

Illegal Logging ◽

Public And Private ◽

Enforcement Effort ◽

Incentive Structures ◽

Expropriation Risk ◽

Insecure Property Rights ◽

Ambiguous Effect

ABSTRACTWe examine the implications of migration and insecure property rights to land use and deforestation in tropical frontier forests. Three forms of property rights risks are introduced to basic land-use forms. Illegal logging risk is associated with forest plantations, a land expropriation risk affects land in agriculture and plantation forestry, and illegal logging risks threaten native forest land. Public and private landowners can reduce these risks by employing costly enforcement effort. We show how that migration, expropriation, and illegal logging risks lead to deforestation by promoting agricultural expansion, and illegal logging. Higher public enforcement reduces illegal logging, but higher private enforcement may or may not reduce deforestation depending on migration pressures. Higher timber prices have an ambiguous effect on deforestation, but an increasing value of non-timber benefits decreases or leaves deforestation unchanged depending on the incentive structures of illegal loggers.

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Rapacious Resource Depletion, Excessive Investment and Insecure Property Rights

SSRN Electronic Journal ◽

10.2139/ssrn.1571060 ◽

2010 ◽

Author(s):

Frederick van der Ploeg

Keyword(s):

Property Rights ◽

Resource Depletion ◽

Insecure Property Rights

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