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1 – 10 of over 18000Biliang Luo and Bo Fu
The purpose of this paper is to summarize the institutional evolution of China's farmland property rights deformity with its internal logic, analyze its property rights deformity…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to summarize the institutional evolution of China's farmland property rights deformity with its internal logic, analyze its property rights deformity and the invasions of these rights under the family operation background, and puts forward fundamental suggestions for reforming farmland property rights in China.
Design/methodology/approach
The concept of “public domain” raised by Barzel in 1989 is used and extended to analyze China's farmland system.
Findings
There exist five sorts of public domain and two apparent characteristics of property rights deformity: the unclear final controlling rights for some valuable attributes of goods of the “public domain”; and the “public domain” deliberately created by the government. The public domain caused by technical factors and owner's real capability are herein excluded.
Originality/value
China's past and present farmland system is a result of the government's compulsory system arrangements instead of market evolution. The expansion of public domains III and V has directly shrunk peasants' residual property rights. The concept of “public domain” is developed to reveal the essence of China's farmland property rights deformity.
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This paper analyzes changes in property rights, land uses, and culturally based notions of ownership that have emerged following privatization of communal land in a Samburu…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper analyzes changes in property rights, land uses, and culturally based notions of ownership that have emerged following privatization of communal land in a Samburu pastoralist community in Northern Kenya. The research challenges the strict dichotomy between private and collective rights often found in property rights literature, which does not match empirical findings of overlapping and contested rights.
Design/methodology/approach
Part of a long-term ethnographic project investigating the process of land privatization and its outcomes, this paper draws on in-depth interviews and participant observation conducted by the author in Samburu County in 2008, 2009, and 2010. Interviews focused on how land is being used post-privatization as well as emerging social norms regulating its use.
Findings
Privatization privileges male household heads with powers including rental, sale, and bequeathal of land. However, informal rights to land extend to women and other household members. Exercise of legal rights is frequently limited due to knowledge and resource gaps. New rules regulating land use have emerged, some represent sharp divergences from past practice while others support shared access to land. These changes challenge Samburu cultural notions of individuality, reciprocity, and shared responsibility.
Practical implications
This research illuminates complex changes following legal shifts in property rights and demonstrates the interactions between formal laws and informal social norms and cultural beliefs about land. The result is that privatization does not have easily predictable outcomes as some theories of property would suggest.
Originality/value
Empirical investigation of the effects of legal changes enables fuller understanding of the implications of policy changes that many governments are pursuing privatization with limited understanding of the likely effects.
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Balihar Sanghera and Elmira Satybaldieva
The purpose of this paper is to examine how illegal settlers and poor families struggle for basic necessities through land invasions, covert practices and illegal sabotage…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how illegal settlers and poor families struggle for basic necessities through land invasions, covert practices and illegal sabotage, examining how fundamental rights to subsistence and dignity are superior to private property claims.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper combines two qualitative research projects that examined property rights in Kyrgyzstan, conducting semi‐structured interviews with poor groups, elites and state officials. One project was conducted between 2009‐2010, examining two illegal settlements and a squatted building in the capital Bishkek, and the other project took place between 2007‐2008 in four villages in Osh region.
Findings
It was found that illegal settlers and poor families deliberate upon the moral aspects of land and property, though sometimes their judgements are distorted by nationalist feelings and racialised identities. Poor and propertyless groups struggle for basic necessities, lacking access to social rights and facing class contempt and state coercion.
Research limitations/implications
The authors criticise de Soto's ideas on legalising squatters' holdings, suggesting that his property rights approach to land offers a flawed moral vision for society and a mis‐understanding of illegal settlements.
Practical implications
International donors need to re‐think development strategies for increasing growth and reducing poverty, and for Kyrgyzstan to abandon the national residential registration system (propiska).
Originality/value
The authors' moral responsibilities approach on property recognises the importance of land and valuable resources for human capabilities, the competing obligations of the state and the role of moral propriety and sentiments in shaping responsibilities towards vulnerable and poor groups.
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The purpose of this paper is to investigate farmers’ attitudes and behavior toward land titling and to study its potential effects on rural development.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate farmers’ attitudes and behavior toward land titling and to study its potential effects on rural development.
Design/methodology/approach
Using household survey data collected from five provinces of China in 2010, this paper assesses farmer’s attitudes toward land titling and examines the potential effects of land titling on rural land transferring and labor migration.
Findings
Rural residential land titling has significant effects on farmers’ attitudes toward land transferring and their migration intention. Farmers who have more non-agricultural development opportunities are more likely to welcome land titling. The titling of rural residential land could provide secure property rights for farmers, and thus stimulate them to trade, mortgage their rural residential property, and migrate to urban areas.
Research limitations/implications
Land titling in rural China will probably affect rural land transferring and encourage rural labor migrate to urban, and thus promote rural development.
Originality/value
This paper investigates farmers’ attitudes and behavior toward land titling, and examines its potential effects on rural land transferring and labor migration, based on national survey data. This paper sheds new lights on farmers’ demand for types of land tenure reforms and how these reforms would affect the perceived opportunities available for farmers.
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Based on the brief historical review, the purpose of this paper is to expound the target and bottom line for the farmland institutional reform of in China, analyze the “Chinese…
Abstract
Purpose
Based on the brief historical review, the purpose of this paper is to expound the target and bottom line for the farmland institutional reform of in China, analyze the “Chinese scenes” and historical heritage of farmland institutional arrangement, evaluate the policies and their effects over the last four decades and outline the keynotes and possible direction of the future reform.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper builds the analytical clue of “institutional target – institutional heritage – policy effort – realistic dilemma – future direction” and review and forecast the Chinese farmland institutional reform.
Findings
The farmland institution is an important issue with Chinese characteristics. Over the last four decades, the farmland institutional reform in China has focused on “stabilizing the land property rights” and “promote the farmland transfer.” As the study indicates, the promotion of farmland transfer has not effectively improved the scale economy of agriculture and stabilizing land property rights by titling may restrain the development of farmland transfer market because farmland transfer is of special market logic.
Originality/value
It depends on the revitalization of farmland management rights to resolve the transaction constraint of personal property and its endowment effect in farmland transfer. And, classifying the land management property to involve farmers into the economy of division can be reference for the reform of traditional agriculture worldwide.
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Is China′s “land use rights” legislation whichdistinguishes transferable “land use rights” and inalienable“land ownership”, a novel concept unknown to human kindbefore, or a…
Abstract
Is China′s “land use rights” legislation which distinguishes transferable “land use rights” and inalienable “land ownership”, a novel concept unknown to human kind before, or a pragmatic reversion to the private property rights system abolished by the communist revolution? Advocates the view that the latter is a more correct interpretation. As part of a “going capitalist” economic reform programme, such a reversion is manifested in the legal recognition of the leasehold tenure after the “responsibility system” in privatizing agricultural production had proved to be successful. As the development of private property rights is a prelude to market transactions, the Chinese land use rights reform should be conducive to the success of the economic liberalization policy of China, provided that there is a contemporaneous advance in the development of the rule of law and technical know‐how, such as valuation and land surveying.
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Raymond Talinbe Abdulai and Edward Ochieng
The assertion that land registration guarantees landownership security is common knowledge. Thus, efforts at securing landownership in particularly, the developing world have…
Abstract
Purpose
The assertion that land registration guarantees landownership security is common knowledge. Thus, efforts at securing landownership in particularly, the developing world have concentrated on the formulation and implementation of land registration policies. However, over the years, whilst some studies claim that land registration assures security, a lot of other studies have established that security cannot be guaranteed by land registration. Also, there is evidence from research that has shown that land registration can be a source of ownership insecurity in some cases. The purpose of this paper is to critically analyse the underpinning principles of land registration and their application in order to establish whether or not land registration can actually guarantee ownership security.
Design/methodology/approach
It is a literature review paper that looks at the existing literature on landownership, security and land registration systems. The land registration principles that have been subjected to critical analysis are the publicity function of land registration, the legality of ownership emanating from land registration and the warranty provided by the State in land registration, specifically, under the Torrens system.
Findings
An analysis of the underpinning principles of land registration shows that land registration per se cannot guarantee ownership security and this helps to explain the findings of the numerous studies, which have established that landownership security cannot be assured by land registration. The paper concludes by identifying the right role of land registration as well as a mechanism that can effectively protect or secure landownership.
Practical implications
Land registration policies and programmes in the developing world are often funded by the international donor community and the findings provide useful insights regarding the actual role of land registration and for policy change in terms of what can secure landownership.
Originality/value
Even though there are two schools of thought regarding research on the link between land registration on one hand, and landownership security on the other, none of the studies has made an attempt to consider the nexus by critically examining the principles that underpin land registration to support their arguments.
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Walter Timo de Vries and Urs Hugentobler
In light of the discussions on outer space property management, this conceptual review paper aims to discuss and evaluate if, when and under which conditions certain land…
Abstract
Purpose
In light of the discussions on outer space property management, this conceptual review paper aims to discuss and evaluate if, when and under which conditions certain land management and property right frameworks can apply to allocate and/or restrict property rights in outer space.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper applies a pragmatic review approach which seeks to better understand if and how the basic tenets of the land management frameworks could better shape and revise the challenges in outer space regulations.
Findings
Despite the fact that regulatory guidelines on outer space rights are existing, the analysis shows that these lack a number of practical tools and measures aiming at intervening if stakeholders do not follow the rules. With the use of land management frameworks, it is possible to derive policy options for making the outer space management more practical and action-oriented, in particular for the removal of space debris. These include amongst others more attention for formulating global public restrictions in outer space, incorporating regulatory guidelines for accessing open space regimes, addressing responsiveness and robustness in adherence and compliance to regulations
Research limitations/implications
Given the conceptual and discursive character of the paper, there are no specific empirical data, yet several recommendations for further research include expanding the boundary work between the land management and regulatory outer space domain.
Practical implications
The insights derived from land management and real estate related property theories could potentially provide new starting points for (re)formulating the regulatory framework for outer space property discourses.
Social implications
Interpreting the outer space regulations from known and practiced land management perspective helps to bridge the policy–society knowledge and necessity gap on outer space activities.
Originality/value
The specific land management perspective and discursive analysis on outer space debris provide new options for devising and extending regulatory guidelines for assigning responsibilities on outer space debris and debris rights, restrictions and responsibilities.
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Ziade Hailu, Isaac N. Nkote and John C. Munene
The purpose of this paper is to empirically test whether enforceability mediates the relationship between property rights and investment in housing, using data from land…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to empirically test whether enforceability mediates the relationship between property rights and investment in housing, using data from land formalization project in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was cross-sectional in design; data were collected from a sample of 210 households that benefited from the recent Addis Ababa city land and buildings formalization project. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess the goodness-of-fit of the latent structures underlying the constructs. Mediation was tested using the Baron and Kenny steps, combined with bootstrapping technique. Robustness of results was checked.
Findings
The results indicate statistically significant mediation effect of contract enforcement. However, the mediation is partial, there is still a substantial direct effect of security of property rights on investment.
Practical implications
Any initiative to land formalization projects needs to consider contract enforcement environment, as presence and size of property rights effects largely depend on whether those rights are properly enforced.
Originality/value
This is the first study that conceptualizes the mediating effect of contract enforcement on the relationship between property rights and investment from an African country perspective.
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Inheritance practice and rules are important keys to understanding the property rights of any rural society. This is especially true for Swedish rural society, traditionally…
Abstract
Inheritance practice and rules are important keys to understanding the property rights of any rural society. This is especially true for Swedish rural society, traditionally predominated by freeholders. Freeholders, unlike tenants, owned their own farms. This means among other things that their children had the right of inheritance to the landed property.