Working Papers

The policy research working papers below are drawn from the World Bank's institutional archives. Each link opens a page with an abstract of the document and several download options. Choose the 'light-weight documents' option for easy download.

What drives the global "land rush"?
The 2007-2008 upsurge in agricultural commodity prices gave rise to widespread concern about investors causing a "global land rush". Large land deals can provide opportunities for better access to capital, transfer of technology, and advances in productivity and employment generation. But they carry risks of dispossession and loss of livelihoods, corruption, deterioration in local food security, environmental damage, and long-term social polarization that led some countries to recently pass legislation restricting foreign land acquisition. To stimulate evidence-based debate, this paper explores determinants of foreign land acquisition for large-scale agriculture.
Working Paper 5864, October 2011

Environmental and gender impacts of land tenure regularization in Africa: Pilot evidence from Rwanda
The nation-wide and relatively low-cost land tenure regularization program in Rwanda has improved land access for legally married women, prompted better recordation of inheritance rights without gender bias, and increased investments in soil conservation measures.
Working Paper 5865, August 2011

Productivity effects of land rental markets in Ethiopia: Evidence from a matched tenant-landlord sample
Plot-level data is used to explore both the efficiency of specific rental arrangements---such as sharecropping—and the broader productivity impacts of the land rental market.
Working Paper 5727, July 2011

Can diaries help improve agricultural production statistics? Evidence from Uganda
Diary-based estimates of output value consistently exceeded that from the recall-based production survey.
Working Paper 5717, June 2011