a r t i c l e i n f o Rural areas often have more than one regime of property rights and production. Large, private-property farms owned by powerful landowners coexist with subsistence peasants who farm small plots with limited property rights. At the same time, there is broad consensus that individual, well-specified and secure property rights over land improve economic outcomes. If property r...

This article presents a case of using property rights to govern land use in the high country of New Zealand’s South Island. It tells the story of a land reform policy and its implementation over two decades, through changes in rules and governing parties. It observes land reform outcomes that are surprisingly favourable to pastoral leaseholders, and surprisingly unfavourable to the Crown. It th...

Over the last decade, following the doi moi reforms, the Vietnamese government has formally recognised the household as the basic unit of production and allocated land use rights to households. Under the 1993 Land Law these rights can be transferred, exchanged, leased, inherited, and mortgaged. A ‘land market’ is emerging in Vietnam but is still constrained for various reasons. Additionally, la...

In the 1980s, the Thai government tried to legalize squatters living in certain geographical areas by issuing special titles that allowed for cultivation but restricted the sale and rental of the land. Using data from 2,874 farming households collected in 1997 and a differences-in-differences empirical strategy, we compare the differential rental rates between secured and unsecured plots in ref...