Concentration of land ownership

Concentration of land ownership refers to the ownership of land in a particular area by a small number of people or organizations.[1] It is sometimes defined as additional concentration beyond that which produces optimally efficient land use.[2]

Not to be confused with land consolidation or land grabbing.

Distribution

Land concentration exists in many countries. In Brazil, one of the countries with the highest amount of land concentration, the situation has resulted in large tracts lying idle while 95% of farmers work just 11% of the arable land. In 2010, the Czech Republic had the highest concentration, according to World Bank figures.[3] In Scotland, just 400 people own more than 50% of privately owned land.[4] Other countries with high land concentration include the United States, Venezuela, Paraguay, South Africa, and Namibia.[5] Land concentration is currently increasing in the European Union[6] and the United States,[7] but decreasing in North Africa.[8]

Development

In theory, a free market should allocate land in the most productive way, but in practice landowning groups have disproportionate power in many countries. Landlords seek to control land so they can extract rent, in the form of payments from tenant farmers, or more recently agricultural subsidies and other subsidies from the state.[9][10] State policies which favor large landowners, such as differential taxation that hits free peasants harder than large landlords and serfs,[11] are an important cause of land concentration.[8] One way that land is accumulated is through unitary inheritance, in contrast to life estates or partible inheritance which tend to redistribute land over time.[12][13] Conquest can lead to land concentration if the conquerors confiscate land from the original owners.[14][15] High interest rates or lack of access to credit can block poorer farmers from buying land, while debt can force them to sell to larger landholders.[16][17] Historically, when land owning becomes less profitable, landowners sell and rural peasants have an opportunity to acquire land.[18] Along with land reform, inheritance taxes and capital gains taxes have also led to the breakup of some estates.[17] Land reform in some countries, including Ireland, South Korea, Japan,[5] and Mexico, have significantly reduced land concentration.[19]

Effects

Critics argue that concentrated land ownership gives the landowner too much power over local communities, reduces opportunities, and impedes economic growth.[20] One study of nineteenth-century Prussia found an inverse correlation between large estates and educational enrollment.[21] In Central America, an economic boom in coffee production led to vastly different results in different countries: Costa Rica and Colombia were dominated by smallholdings and experienced democratization and surging literacy rates, while in El Salvador and Guatemala, rural laborers earned bare subsistence.[22] Studies in 48 developing countries found a correlation between land concentration and deforestation.[23] Another study found an inverse correlation between inequality of land ownership and economic growth.[24] According to a Scottish landlord group, however, land use is more important than land ownership, and there is not enough evidence for a negative effect.[25]

According to some economists, concentrated land ownership in non-Western countries explains the Great Divergence in outcomes between wealthy, Western countries and the rest of the world. Israeli economist Oded Galor writes the mediating factor for this effect was that large landholdings gave the landowning elites political power to stop reforms aimed at improving education rates and therefore human capital, which in turn facilitated the divergence.[26] According to Gary Libecap, differences in land ownership patterns explain much of the different development trajectories between the United States and Latin America. He attributes the greater success and entrepreneurial spirit of the United States to its Homestead Acts giving land to prospective smallholders.[27]

Although there has been some debate as to the optimal size of landholdings for agricultural productivity, research has indicated that unlike industry, which benefits from economy of scale, the most productive farms are small- to medium- sized family farms cultivated with a minimum of hired labor. This may be because family labor is cheaper and more productive than hired labor, or because crops benefit from close attention. (The phenomenon of small farms being more efficient is known as the inverse relationship).[28] On the other hand, land fragmentation is known to reduce productivity of land.[29]

See also

• Absentee landlord
• Equal-field system
• Latifundia
• Land tenure

References

1. Glass, McMorran & Thomson 2019, p. 4.
2. United States Bureau of Corporations 1914, p. 156.
3. Paulino 2014, pp. 135–136.
4. Glass, McMorran & Thomson 2019, p. 9.
5. Moyo 2014, p. 19.
6. Kay 2016, p. 14.
7. O'Donoghue et. al. 2010.
8. Moyo 2008, p. 42.
9. Binswanger-Mkhize & Deininger 2007, p. 1.
10. Galor, Moav & Vollrath 2009, 2. Related literature.
11. Deininger 2003, p. 14.
12. Wasserstrom 2013, p. 48.
13. Babie 2019, pp. 213–214.
14. Snay 2010, p. 104.
15. Tilly 2004, p. 136.
16. Carte et. al. 2019, p. 8.
17. Glass, McMorran & Thomson 2019, p. 39.
18. Glass, McMorran & Thomson 2019, p. 10.
19. OECD 2006, p. 140.
20. Glass, McMorran & Thomson 2019, pp. 25, 28.
21. Cinnirella & Hornung 2016, p. abstract.
22. Glass, McMorran & Thomson 2019, p. 29.
23. Ceddia 2019, p. 2527.
24. Glass, McMorran & Thomson 2019, p. 28.
25. Carrell 2019.
26. Galor, Moav & Vollrath 2009, 7. Concluding remarks.
27. Libecap 2018.
28. Jacobs 2010, p. 6.
29. Manjunatha et al. 2013, p. 397.

Sources

• Babie, Paul (2019). Léon Duguit and the Social Obligation Norm of Property: A Translation and Global Exploration. Springer Nature. ISBN 978-981-13-7189-9.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Binswanger-Mkhize, Hans; Deininger, Klaus (2007). "History of Land Concentration and Land Reforms". The World Bank. S2CID 150386687.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Carrell, Severin (20 March 2019). "Report calls for reform of 'unhealthy' land ownership in Scotland". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 November 2019.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Carte, Lindsey; Schmook, Birgit; Radel, Claudia; Johnson, Richard (2019). "The Slow Displacement of Smallholder Farming Families: Land, Hunger, and Labor Migration in Nicaragua and Guatemala". Land. 8 (6): 89. doi:10.3390/land8060089.
• Ceddia, M. Graziano (12 February 2019). "The impact of income, land, and wealth inequality on agricultural expansion in Latin America". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 116 (7): 2527–2532. doi:10.1073/pnas.1814894116. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 6377487. PMID 30679279.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Cinnirella, Francesco; Hornung, Erik (2016). "Landownership concentration and the expansion of education". Journal of Development Economics. 121: 135–152. doi:10.1016/j.jdeveco.2016.03.001. ISSN 0304-3878.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Deininger, Klaus W. (2003). Land Policies for Growth and Poverty Reduction. World Bank Publications. ISBN 978-0-8213-5071-3.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Galor, Oded; Moav, Omer; Vollrath, Dietrich (2009). "Inequality in Landownership, the Emergence of Human-Capital Promoting Institutions, and the Great Divergence". The Review of Economic Studies. 76 (1): 143–179. doi:10.1111/j.1467-937X.2008.00506.x. ISSN 0034-6527. PMC 3740999. PMID 23946551.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Glass, Jayne; McMorran, Rob; Thomson, Steven (2019). The Effects Associated with Concentrated and Large Scale Land Ownership in Scotland: A Research Review (PDF). Scottish Land Commission.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Jacobs, Susie (2010). "Agrarian reform" (PDF). Sociopedia. International Sociological Association. doi:10.1177/205684601072 (inactive 2020-06-06).CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Kay, Silvia (4 December 2016). "Land grabbing and land concentration in Europe". Transnational Institute.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Libecap, Gary (2018). "The Consequences Of Land Ownership". Hoover Institution.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Manjunatha, A. V.; Anik, Asif Reza; Speelman, S.; Nuppenau, E. A. (2013). "Impact of land fragmentation, farm size, land ownership and crop diversity on profit and efficiency of irrigated farms in India". Land Use Policy. 31: 397–405. doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2012.08.005. ISSN 0264-8377.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Moyo, Sam (2014). "Land Ownership Patterns and Income Inequality in Southern Africa" (PDF). United Nations.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Moyo, Sam (2008). African Land Questions, Agrarian Transitions and the State: Contradictions of Neo-liberal Land Reforms. African Books Collective. ISBN 978-2-86978-202-0.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• O'Donoghue, Erik; MacDonald, James M; Vasavada, Utpal; Sullivan, Patrick (2010). "Changing Farming Practices". Economic Research Service (United States Department of Agriculture). Retrieved 25 November 2019.
• Agricultural and Fisheries Policies in Mexico Recent Achievements, Continuing the Reform Agenda. OECD Publishing. 2006. ISBN 978-92-64-03025-1.
• Paulino, Eliane Tomiasi (2014). "The agricultural, environmental and socio-political repercussions of Brazil's land governance system". Land Use Policy. 36: 134–144. doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2013.07.009. ISSN 0264-8377.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Snay, Mitchell (2010). Fenians, Freedmen, and Southern Whites: Race and Nationality in the Era of Reconstruction. Baton Rouge: LSU Press. ISBN 978-0-8071-5481-6.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Tilly, Charles (2004). Contention and Democracy in Europe, 1650-2000. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-53713-1.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• United States Bureau of Corporations (1914). The Lumber Industry. U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 156. concentrated land ownership.
• Wasserstrom, Jeffrey N. (2013). Twentieth-Century China: New Approaches. Routledge. p. 48. ISBN 978-1-134-64712-5.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

Further reading

• Barraclough, Solon L. (1999). "Land Reform in Developing Countries" (PDF). United Nations Research Institute for Social Development.
• Borras, Saturnino M. (2009). "Land Redistribution in the Philippines". In Binswanger-Mkhize, Hans P.; Bourguignon, Camille; Brink, Rogerius Johannes Eugenius van den (eds.). Agricultural Land Redistribution: Toward Greater Consensus. World Bank Publications. ISBN 9780821379622.