Journal ArticleDOI
Poverty and the Distribution of Land
TLDR
The case in favour of redistributive land reform focusing on fragmented factor markets and systems of labour control is reviewed in this paper. But the authors do not consider the effect of land ownership on the overall performance of the economy.Abstract:
Redistributive land reforms have begun to attract the attention of scholars and policy makers once again. In this paper, we review old arguments and bring them up-to-date in the light of recent research. We begin with the case in favour of redistributive reforms focusing on fragmented factor markets and systems of labour control, of which concentration of land ownership is but one aspect. We then examine land reform in practice, focusing on distinct regional features and outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, the transition economies of the former Soviet bloc and, as examples of success, East Asia (including China and Vietnam). Next we discuss the macroeconomic context and the two-way direction of causality between a redistribution of productive assets and the overall performance of the economy. We underline the importance of weakening the system of labour control, eliminating landlord bias and correcting urban bias. Finally, we argue that a prominent feature of all successful land reforms has been a high degree of land confiscation; full compensation and various types of ‘market friendly’ land reform are unlikely to be successful.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
The new enclosures: critical perspectives on corporate land deals
TL;DR: In this article, the authors use the tools of agrarian political economy to explore the rapid growth and complex dynamics of large-scale land deals in recent years, with a special focus on the implications of big land deals for property and labour regimes, labour processes and structures of accumulation.
Journal ArticleDOI
Land, farming, livelihoods, and poverty: Rethinking the links in the Rural South
TL;DR: The Rural South is becoming increasingly divorced from farming and, therefore, from the land Patterns and associations of wealth and poverty have become more diffuse and diverse as non-farm opportunities have expanded and heightened levels of mobility have led to the delocalization of livelihoods as mentioned in this paper.
Journal ArticleDOI
How not to think of land-grabbing: three critiques of large-scale investments in farmland
TL;DR: The main concern behind the development of large-scale investments in farmland is that giving land away to investors, having better access to capital to 'develop', implies huge opportunity costs, as it will result in a type of farming that will have much less powerful poverty-reducing impacts, than if access to land and water were improved for the local farming communities; that it directs agriculture towards crops for export markets, increasing the vulnerability to price.
Journal ArticleDOI
Impact of land fragmentation and resource ownership on productivity and efficiency: The case of rice producers in Bangladesh
Sanzidur Rahman,Mahbubur Rahman +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the impact of land fragmentation and ownership of resources on productivity and technical efficiency in rice production in Bangladesh using farm level survey data was analyzed and it was shown that land fragmentation has a significant detrimental effect on productivity.
Journal ArticleDOI
‘Changing Before Our Very Eyes’: Agrarian Questions and the Politics of Land in Capitalism Today
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors endorses the criticisms of neo-classical populism and its advocacy of redistributive land reform provided by other contributions to this special issue of the Journal, to which they add several further points If GKI propose a version of an agrarian question of "small" or "family" farming, and its resolution through a familiar (Chayanovian) path of development, much of the critique rests, in one way or another, on the "classic" agrgarian question in capitalist transition.
References
More filters
Book
Principles of Economics
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a survey of the general relations of demand, supply, and value in terms of land, labour, capital, and industrial organization, with an emphasis on the fertility of land.
Journal ArticleDOI
Distributive Politics and Economic Growth
Alberto Alesina,Dani Rodrik +1 more
TL;DR: This paper analyzed the relationship between economics and politics and concluded that inequality is conducive to the adoption of growth-retarding policies, and presented cross-country evidence consistent with it. But their analysis focused on how an economy's initial configuration of resources shapes the political struggle for income and wealth distribution, and how that, in turn, affects long run growth.
Journal ArticleDOI
New ways of looking at old issues: inequality and growth
Klaus Deininger,Lyn Squire +1 more
TL;DR: This article showed that there is a strong negative relationship between initial inequality in the asset distribution and long-term growth, and that policies that increase aggregate investment and facilitate acquisition of assets by the poor might be doubly beneficial for growth and poverty reduction.
Book
Agricultural Involution: The Processes of Ecological Change in Indonesia
TL;DR: Geertz as discussed by the authors provides an insightful and persuasive analysis of Indonesian agricultural history, primarily covering the period of Dutch control, from 1619 to 1942, drawing on ecology, sociology, and economics.