''Land Reform in Developing Countries: Property Rights and Property Wrongs'' is a 2009 book by the Leontief Prize–winning economist

Michael Lipton Michael Lipton (13 February 1937 – 1 April 2023) was an English development studies economist specializing in the study of rural poverty in developing countries, including issues relating to land reform and urban bias. He spent much of his ca ...

. It is a comprehensive review of

land reform Land reform (also known as agrarian reform) involves the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership, land use, and land transfers. The reforms may be initiated by governments, by interested groups, or by revolution. Lan ...

issues in

developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a less-developed Secondary sector of the economy, industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to developed countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. ...

and focuses on the evidence of which land reforms have worked and which have not.

Summary of the book

The introduction defines land reform as comprising "laws with the main goal of reducing poverty by substantially increasing the proportion of farmland controlled by the poor, and thereby their income, power or status"(the appendix gives a more precise definition). It then expands on what is meant by poverty and how land reform still "matters", especially as according to Lipton "land is poor people's main productive asset" and "at least 1.5 billion people today have some farmland as a result of land reform, and are less poor, or not poor, as a result." However, for Lipton, "huge, inefficient land inequalities remain, or have re-emerged, in many low-income countries. Land reform remains both 'unfinished business' (...) and alive and well." Chapter 1 analyses the goals of stakeholders involved in land reform: public authorities, landowners, farmers and other directly affected persons as well as the goals for land reform advocated by outsiders, from aid donors to economists and philosophers. Land reform normally advances one widely shared goal, equality of opportunity, but it can retard another, liberty to enjoy 'legitimate'

property rights The right to property, or the right to own property (cf. ownership), is often classified as a human right for natural persons regarding their Possession (law), possessions. A general recognition of a right to private property is found more rarely ...

. This chapter looks at the trade-offs and how various types of claimed land reform affect these goals and others, notably

poverty reduction Poverty reduction, poverty relief, or poverty alleviation is a set of measures, both economic and humanitarian, that are intended to permanently lift people out of poverty. Measures, like those promoted by Henry George in his economics classi ...

sustainability Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long period of time. Definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Sustainability usually has three dimensions (or pillars): env ...

economic efficiency In microeconomics, economic efficiency, depending on the context, is usually one of the following two related concepts: * Allocative or Pareto efficiency: any changes made to assist one person would harm another. * Productive efficiency: no addit ...

and

economic growth In economics, economic growth is an increase in the quantity and quality of the economic goods and Service (economics), services that a society Production (economics), produces. It can be measured as the increase in the inflation-adjusted Outp ...

. Chapter 2 explores the impact of land reform and land policy on farm and non-farm growth and efficiency. It looks at the long debate on whether "there is an inverse relationship (IR) in labour-abundant countries", such that "small farms produce more, per hectare per year, than large farms". Lipton concludes that careful and recent work in Africa and elsewhere confirms that, "mainly due to the IR plus land scarcity, redistributive land reform in developing countries normally increases farm output." Chapters 3-6 reviews the experience with different types of policies, variously labelled as land reform. They ask: are these genuine land reforms in the sense of seeking, and moving towards, "farmland-based reduction of gross, unearned inequality and hence of

poverty Poverty is a state or condition in which an individual lacks the financial resources and essentials for a basic standard of living. Poverty can have diverse Biophysical environmen ...

"? These main types of land reform are: * the paradigm: 'classic' land reform, leading to land transfers from big to small farms (chapter 3) * laws to stop, restrict, register, enable or encourage

tenancy A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the ''lessee'') to pay the owner (referred to as the ''lessor'') for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial ...

, overall or for particular types (chapter 4) * other tenurial rules, for example titling of land ownership or control (chapter 4) * collectivisation into

State State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

farming,

collective farming Collective farming and communal farming are various types of "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member-o ...

or co-operative farming, which according to Lipton have normally proved a 'terrible detour' or 'land deform' (chapter 5) * decollectivisation (which may be land reform if resulting land ownership is fairly equal) (chapter 5) * other alleged paths to the aims of land reform:

land consolidation Land, also known as dry land, ground, or earth, is the solid terrestrial surface of Earth not submerged by the ocean or another body of water. It makes up 29.2% of Earth's surface and includes all continents and islands. Earth's land surface ...

, settlement,

tax reform Tax reform is the process of changing the way taxes are collected or managed by the government and is usually undertaken to improve tax administration or to provide economic or social benefits. Tax reform can include reducing the level of taxati ...

, etc. (chapter 6) * new wave (decentralised, market-friendly and/or non-confiscatory) land reform (chapter 6) Chapter 7 reviews the persistent allegation that land reform is dead, or was so effectively avoided that it never lived. Lipton asks the questions: Where has it happened on the ground, how much and when? He also asks: Is land reform still happening and where it is not dead, ought it to be? Lipton concludes: "In many developing countries, land reform is a live, often burning, issue ... The debate about land reform is alive and well."

Criticisms

The book overall received positive reviews and endorsements (see below). However, Andrew Dorward did have some "minor gripes" within his very positive review. He wished that it did not finish so abruptly and that it had a final chapter "summing up the main lessons from the book for the next generation of researchers, analysts and practitioners in the field." He would also have liked to have seen "more explicit attention to interactions of land reform with gender and the environment." Abhijit Sen, while giving it an overall positive review, found that: He also finished his review with some further critiques, especially in relation to land reform in India:

Endorsements

The book received positive endorsements from a wide range of authors, including

Jeffrey Sachs Jeffrey David Sachs ( ; born November 5, 1954) is an American economist and public policy analyst who is a professor at Columbia University, where he was formerly director of The Earth Institute. He worked on the topics of sustainable develop ...

, Nicholas Stern,

Amartya Sen Amartya Kumar Sen (; born 3 November 1933) is an Indian economist and philosopher. Sen has taught and worked in England and the United States since 1972. In 1998, Sen received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions ...

Gordon Conway Sir Gordon Richard Conway (6 July 1938 – 30 July 2023) was a British agricultural ecologist, who served as the president of the Rockefeller Foundation and the Royal Geographical Society. He was latterly Professor of International Development ...

, Nancy Birdsall,

Paul Collier Sir Paul Collier, (born 23 April 1949) is a British development economist who serves as the Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford and co-director of the International Gro ...

, Akin Adesina and Pramod K. Mishra.

Reviews

References

External links

The Case for Redistributional Land Reform in Developing Countries - review essay of the book
- Albert Berry, Development and Change 2011 42(2): 637–648.
Land Reform in Developing Countries: Property Rights and Property Wrongs - Book review
- Andrew Dorward, Journal of Agricultural Economics 2012 2: 484–486.
Land Reform in Developing Countries: Property Rights and Property Wrongs - a review
- Keijiro Otsuka, EH.Net 2012
Land Reform in Developing Countries: Property Rights and Property Wrongs - book review
- Joe Hill - South Asian Water Studies 2(3)

- Joe Hill - Economic & Political Weekly 2012 Vol XLVII No. 30.
Land Reform in Developing Countries: Property Rights and Property Wrongs - book review
- Herb Thompson, Journal of Contemporary Asia 2011 41 (1): 179-180
Unfinished Tasks of Land Reform
- Abhijit Sen - A review of the book - Review of Agrarian Studies 2013 3(1)
Book Review - Land Reform in Developing Countries: Property rights and Property wrongs
- Mark L Wahlqvist - Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2009 18 (4): 703
Land Reform in Developing Countries: Property Rights and Property Wrongs - book review
- Christine Valente - The Journal of Development Studies 2009 45 (10)
Book review - Land Reform in Developing Countries: Property rights and Property wrongs
- Amy Ickowitz - The Journal of Peasant Studies 2011 38(1): 193–207
Land Reform in Developing Countries: contents, reviews, how to get it
- from the website of

Publisher webpage for the book

Personal website of Michael Lipton
{{DEFAULTSORT:Land Reform in Developing Countries Property rights and property wrongs 2009 non-fiction books Current affairs books Books about economic inequality Land reform Development economics Routledge books International development International development in Africa Development studies