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The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, the authors construct a country-specific time-varying private rental regulation index for 18 developed economies starting from 1973 to 2014. Second, the authors analyze the effects of their index on the housing rental markets across 18 countries and states.

The authors’ index not only covers 18 developed economies over 42 years but also combines both tenure security and rent laws. The authors’ empirical framework is that of panel regressions with time and country fixed effects.

The authors’ index sheds further insights on the extent to which rent and tenure security laws have converged over the past 40 years for each economy. Moreover, the authors show three empirical results. First, stringent rent control regimes do lead to lower real rent growth rates than regimes with free rents. Second, soft rent control regimes with time-limited tenure security and minimum duration periods, however, may cause higher rent growth rates than free rent regimes. Third, rent-free regimes do not show significant high real rent appreciation rates.

The authors’ rental regulation index is the first time-varying index that covers more than 18 economies over 40 years.

This study examines the heterogeneous correlations between rural farmers' land renting behavior and their grain production when they experienced a significant price decline.

We used well-timed panel data obtained from a two-round survey held in 2013 and 2017 among 621 households in the North China Plain. The empirical analyses were conducted by using the pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) and fixed effects models.

Rural tenants were having heterogeneous responses in land renting behavior and agricultural production when there was a price decline. A group of optimistic tenants (as professional farmers) were more likely to enlarge the farm scale for grain production through land rental markets but decrease variable investment levels (and subsequently decreased productivity) to cope with price decline. In contrast, nonprofessional farmers (the other rural tenants) were rather pessimistic about market performance, and they significantly decreased their grain production area to cope the price decline, but there was no decrease in grain productivity through reducing variable inputs.

This study contributes to the extant literature on the relationship between farmers' land renting-in behavior and agricultural production. By dividing the tenants into professional and nonprofessional farmers, we argue that there is a significant heterogeneous correlation between rural tenants' land renting behavior and grain production when farmers experience a price decline.

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.

A steady stream of literature has examined relationships between audit committee effectiveness, audit quality and financial reporting quality. The purpose of this paper is to connect these various streams of research to provide an empirical evidence from an Arabic emergent country namely Tunisia. This study examines the role of audit committee effectiveness and audit quality on financial reporting quality particularly to mitigate the earnings management in the Tunisian companies before and after financial security law adoption.

The study uses ordinary least squares regression model to investigate the effect of audit committee characteristics, audit quality attributes and the interaction between these two overseeing mechanisms on earnings management for a sample of 29 non-financial listed Tunisian firms during the period 2001-2009.

The results document a substitute effect between the presence of Big Four auditor and effective audit committee in order to reduce the discretionary accruals before the enforcement of law no. 2005-96 dealing with the financial securities. The authors find a complementarity link between the score of audit committee’s effectiveness and auditor industry specialization’s to constrain earnings management. Finally, the findings show a complementary relation between audit committee’s effectiveness and audit tenure, after the passage of the law.

This study shows the value of considering the institutional setting in governance research. This paper is restricted to firms in the Tunisia from 2001 to 2009. Future research should investigate this issue in other settings and periods.

This study is important to practitioner and academic literature, policy makers and professional accounting bodies as it shows that legislative reforms can enhance companies to adopt good governance practices in emerging countries. The results also give useful information to investors in examination the effect of audit committee characteristics and audit quality on earnings quality. Another interesting practical focus of this study is to assess how successful was the implementation of financial security law in improving audit transparency and support shareholder involvement in the audit process.

The results suggested that governance regulation is a substitute for strong governance mechanisms in both the pre- and post-law periods.

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.

This paper aims to analyse the extent to which the government’s recent proposals to end no-fault evictions will result in “family-friendly” tenancies.

It applies the theoretical scholarship on the meaning of family and home to the current law relating to private rented tenancies and the government’s proposals to increase security of tenure in the private rented sector.

Security of tenure is important to a number of the key aspects of home. However, feelings of home are better protected by security of occupancy, which requires more than de jure security of tenure. For families to feel at home in the private rented sector, they must be permitted to personalise their home and to keep pets. Further legislative changes could achieve these changes. However, for families to really make a home in the private rented sector, they need to exercise some choice over where they live and for low-income families; this will only be possible with broader policy changes.

This paper contributes to the important scholarship on the meaning of home and applies this to the very current debate on the rights of tenants in the private rented sector.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to use the notion of “casualisation” in an employment context to reflect on similar developments in England and Wales since 1996 which have combined to undermine security of tenure in the private and social rented sectors and exposed the vulnerability of owner occupiers who default on mortgage repayments.

The paper draws on observations made by commentators in housing and social policy as well as official papers, statutes and cases.

The problems posed for the long‐term security of residential occupiers are highlighted and are shown to result from a combination of factors including the deregulation of the private rented sector, the dependency of housing association on their rental streams, governmental preoccupation with anti‐social behaviour in social housing and the principle that mortgage lenders have the right to possession of the mortgaged property.

The notion of casualisation is used as an analytical tool to assess changes in law and policy, and to suggest possibilities for reform.