The Effect of Land Reforms on Long Term Health and Well-being in India

India pursued one of the largest programs of land reforms on record since the 1950s. These reforms were aimed at securing access to land for the vast majority of rural households dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods. There is mixed evidence on the effect of these reforms on poverty. Moreover, the long run welfare consequences of these reforms have not been evaluated. Using across-state and across-cohort variation in the timing of reform legislations, this paper examines the impact of India’s extensive land reforms on height, a long term measure of health. I find that land reforms led to significant improvements in health and well-being for cohorts experiencing such reforms before age 18. Land ceiling legislations resulted in an increase of 3.3 – 4.5 centimeters in height for women. Additionally, abolition of intermediate land revenue collection entities led to height gains of 1.3 – 1.8 centimeters for women. I also examine the impact of land reforms on education and find that abolition of intermediaries significantly increased schooling by an additional year for cohorts exposed to these reforms. There is also some evidence for intergenerational health benefits from land reforms with improved heightfor-age performance of children whose mothers benefited from such reforms. The paper concludes that land reforms constitute an effective policy option for improving long run welfare through better long term health and higher educational attainment. * I am grateful to Emmett Keeler, Neeraj Sood, and David Evans for their advice, guidance and encouragement. The paper has benefited from the comments of Anil Deolalikar, John Hoddinott, Arnab Mukherji, Peter Svedberg, Xiaobo Zhang and participants at the IFPRI conference in Beijing during October 17 – 19, 2007. This research was supported by the Kip and Mary-Ann Hagopian Dissertation Fellowship from the Pardee RAND Graduate School. All remaining errors are mine. † Pardee RAND Graduate School, 1776 Main Street, Santa Monica, CA 90407. E-mail: [email protected]