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The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of perceived land tenure security in China on farmers' decisions to invest in relatively long‐term land quality improvement measures, taking into account the potential endogeneity of tenure security.

Data from a survey held in 2008 and 2010 among 259 households in Minle County, Gansu province, covering the years 2007 and 2009, are used to estimate the factors affecting land levelling investments, irrigation canal investments and perceived land tenure security. The authors use the 2SCML technique and the IVLS method to estimate a selection model and a non‐limited regression model, respectively, and use IVP methods to examine the robustness of the results.

The authors' results indicate that perceived land tenure security significantly affects self‐governed investments but does not affect individual investments in land quality improvements. In particular, the authors find that households that consider land certificates as important for protecting land rights invest significantly more in irrigation canals construction and maintenance. The authors' results further provide evidence that individual investments in land quality improvement contribute to higher perceived land tenure security.

The paper contributes to the available literature on the relationship between land tenure security and land investments by examining the role of perceived (instead of formal) land tenure security and by making a distinction between individual household investments and self‐governed land investments. The authors' results provide an explanation for the phenomenon that land readjustments still take place in some parts of China, but not in others.

The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of land rights and tenure types on farmers' investment behavior in Chinese collective forests, using household survey data from Fujian Province.

In this study, the authors conducted a household survey in Fujian province of 520 randomly selected forest farmers. The authors used a random‐effects Tobit model to estimate the impact of land rights and other components on, for example, tenure security and harvest quota, and the impact of tenure types on farmers' investment incentives.

This study produced three main findings: perceived tenure security in the context of frequent agricultural land redistribution negatively affects input intensity; farmers still perceive some tenure arrangements to be more uncertain than others, which discourages them from undertaking investments on such plots; and the harvest quota regulation, introduced to conserve forest stock, has in fact acted as a disincentive in forestry management.

Almost all previous studies are based on national or regional data, which have primarily focused on the links between tenure types and investment incentives. In this study, based on the plot‐level data, the authors are able to assess not only the impacts of tenure types but also how specific land rights and their components affect farmers' investment behavior.

This paper aims to explore the role of participatory governance to actors’ participation in land use planning for tenure security in rural Tanzania. Three case studies where land use planning project implemented were selected to make assessment on how local actors were involved in the process.

This paper uses qualitative research methods, whereby semi-structured interviews with village landholders and key informants were conducted to get their perspectives on land use decisions and land tenure (in)security. Besides, focus group discussions with the village landholders were also used.

The research findings indicate low participation of local actors in land use planning process. Decisions on land use by the local actors were very minimal. Further, communication between the involved actors was also difficult.

The study offers insights on participatory governance into land use planning for tenure security. The study develops a framework to improve land use planning process toward tenure security outcome. A tri-partite strategy consisting of enabling mechanisms of governance capacity, institutional capacity and converging discourses articulates a framework for the evolution in the degree of local actors’ participation to improve security of land rights through land use planning process in rural Tanzania.

This paper assesses the effect of land ownership on household food security through its productivity enhancement effect in rural Burkina Faso.

As the link between land tenure security and productivity is indirect, the study relies on a complex mixed process regression model with robustness to assess the effect of land ownership on household productivity. Then, an instrumental variable (IV) approach is followed to investigate the association between household productivity and food security. The rural development program survey data collected from 1,892 households in 2017 are used.

The complex mixed process estimation results are robust and show that land ownership has a positive effect on household productivity. From the IV results, it is found that productive households spend more on food, have a low share of expenditures on food and are less likely to experience severe food shortages, implying an improvement in their food security status. This highlights a positive association between land ownership and food security.

Unlike previous studies that only focused on the effect of land ownership on land-related investments and agricultural productivity, this study deepens the analysis and sheds light on how land ownership, agricultural production and food security are related. It gives empirical evidence on the importance of land policies in the struggle against food insecurity in agrarian economies.

The peer review history for this article is available at https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-11-2021-0658.

Cities are shaped by many elements, but undoubtedly one of the most significant factors is the urban land market. Urban farmers, often producing food on land with limited or no security of tenure, are exposed to the risk of being evicted in order for land to be used for more profitable uses such as housing development. In the absence of a system of land titling, advocacy groups, or secure tenure, urban farmers are pushed to the margins. It then becomes difficult to support, manage and/or regulate the sector. More importantly, without legal status, most forms of credit are inaccessible to farmers and they must rely on kinship and illicit sources for credit.

The influence of land tenure on the security of urban farmers to practice their livelihood is significant. Recent IDRC supported projects suggest that banking systems and economists need to develop a methodology to value lands that are informally controlled by farmers or where there are customary legal systems in place. Moreover, evidence suggests that advocacy groups have manage to increase security and access to land for urban farmers.

This paper seeks to evaluate different approaches to forest conservation in the areas outside the national parks of south‐western Madagascar.

Data from a household survey in the area are employed to analyse farmer strategies towards conservation of local forest resources, and present conservation strategies are evaluated in this light.

It is argued that the prospects for future forest conservation in the area are dim at best, and that any policy proposal intended to remedy this situation must as a first priority establish alternative livelihood opportunities for the local population in order to ensure a minimum of incentives for conservation on their behalf.

The paper is of value to all those interested or involved with sustainability issues.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Achieving tenure security is a global challenge impacting cities of the global south. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the role of technology-enabled solutions as an enabler for the tenure rights of slum dwellers.

In this paper, we adopted a case study approach to analyze the use cases for technologies aiding India’s securitization of land tenure. The flagship state mission of Odisha, named the Jaga Mission, and that of Punjab, named BASERA – the Chief Minister’s Slum Development Program – were used as cases for this paper.

It was found that technologies like drone imagery and digital surveys fast-tracked the data collection and helped in mapping the slums with accuracy, mitigating human errors arising during measurement – a necessary condition for ensuring de jure tenure security. The adoption of a technology-based solution, along with a suitable policy and legal framework, has helped in the distribution of secure land titles to the slum dwellers in these states.

Odisha’s and Punjab’s journey in using technology to enable tenure security for its urban poor residents can serve as a model for the cities of the global south, dealing with the challenges of providing secure tenure and property rights.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of title risks on property prices to establish the associated title risk-price premiums across property types and the moderating effect of occupation strategies for informal transactions.

Based on household survey data on transactions for 1,514 residential properties in Kinondoni Municipality, Tanzania, binomial logistic regression models were implemented to predict pre-purchase transaction risks. The results of which were used as inputs in mixed effect models to examine the effect of the predicted title risks on (2,010 constant) purchase price for three-bedrooms finished and unfinished housing units and 400 m² plots.

Although legal titles have positive overall title risk-price premiums, such premiums hardly accrue from transactions involving finished houses and marginally accrue from vacant plots transactions. On average, unfinished housing purchasers are title risk-averse, “vacant plots” purchasers are title risk-neutral, while “finished housing” purchasers are title risk-lovers.

The sample composition does not include developer-built housing units, the inclusion of which may sway results away from the observations of this study.

Titling alone can hardly be used as a property market stimuli (eliminate transaction risks) unless the market is dominated by unfinished houses.

Existing studies consider neither traded housing products nor pre-purchase transaction risks or consider only one of the two, thus leaving a gap in the literature for which this study sought to bridge. Researchers must incorporate both to arrive at a well-informed conclusion on the potential risks as well as prices achievable in each transaction.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of land tenure on housing values in metropolitan Kampala.

A hedonic model is used to test the relationship between housing prices, land tenure and housing attributes using a cross-sectional dataset of transaction prices for 590 newly built houses sold in 2011.

Public leaseholds in Kampala offer a premium of 23 per cent in housing values compared to freeholds. This could be due to a lack of formal systems for the assessment of leasehold premium and ground rent charges, an arrangement which can offer utility to the lesse at the expense of lessor, thereby making leaseholds popular on the market, or the developers’ lack of information on the benefits of freehold causing them to value leaseholds higher than freeholds. Similarly, private mailo tenure offers a 12 per cent premium in housing values compared to freeholds. There is no significant impact of Kabaka’s mailo tenure on housing values. When compared to private mailo, public leaseholds offer an 11 per cent premium in housing values.

There is a need to advance leasehold as the urban land tenure for Uganda, disentangle multiple-layers of ownership on mailo land and roll out the land fund to enhance growth of the housing market in Kampala.

This paper is the first of its kind to empirically examine the impact of mailo land tenure on housing values. Findings provide useful insights for investors and policymakers in the housing sector in Uganda.