Poverty and land redistribution

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Keswell, Malcolm; Carter, Michael R.
• 署名单位: University of Cape Town; University of Cape Town; University of California System; University of California Davis; University of California System; University of California Berkeley
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2013.10.003
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 250-261
• 关键词: Land reform; poverty; Impact evaluation

摘要

Despite a theoretical literature that promises that land transfers will have large impacts on the well-being of poor households, well-identified empirical evidence on the efficacy of land redistribution is scarce. In an effort to fill this gap, this paper examines South Africa's Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development (LRAD) program. We exploit features of LRAD program implementation to extract exogenous variation in whether, and for how long, applicant households enjoyed land transfers. Binary treatment estimates, which compare treated with untreated households, show that beneficiary households on average experienced a 25% increase in per-capita consumption. Our preferred continuous treatment estimates, which analyze only the subset of treated households, identify the impact time path of land transfers on consumption. These estimates show that living standards initially drop and then, after 3-4 years, rise to 150% of their pre-transfer level. These results are statistically significant and robust to a statistically more conservative identification strategy. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.