Land and Labor Institutions in the Process of Rural Development: Drawing Lessons from Asia's Experience for Africa

LAND AND LABOR INSTITUTIONS IN THE PROCESS OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT: DRAWING LESSONS FROM ASIA'S EXPERIENCE FOR AFRICA

Sponsoring Institution

National Institute of Food and Agriculture

Project Status

COMPLETE

Funding Source

HATCH

Reporting Frequency

Annual

Accession No.

0216357

Grant No.

(N/A)

Cumulative Award Amt.

(N/A)

Proposal No.

(N/A)

Multistate No.

(N/A)

Project Start Date

Oct 1, 2008

Project End Date

Sep 30, 2013

Grant Year

(N/A)

Program Code

[(N/A)]- (N/A)

Recipient Organization
MICHIGAN STATE UNIV
(N/A)
EAST LANSING,MI 48824

Performing Department
Agricultural, Food, & Resource Economics

Non Technical Summary
Together with labor, land is one of the main assets of poor people in developing countries. Secure and well-defined land rights will contribute to poverty reduction and economic development in a number of different ways. First, the distribution of land and the security of land rights have clear implications for the overall productivity and income distribution as well as households' incentives to invest and use land in a more sustainable manner. Second, secure land rights could improve household's ability to access credit. Finally, secure land rights also provide a necessary condition for the development of land and other factor markets. However, the evolution of land was often a historical, cultural and political process rather than a pure economic one, and the traditional land arrangements in many developing countries are often not socially or economically optimal. During the past several decades, tremendous progress has been made toward establishing more secure and transferable land rights across the developing countries. Numerous interventions -from land titling and land reforms to efforts aiming at making rural factor markets work better- aim to increase incentives for land-related investment, the scope for its exchange in markets, and the ability to use it for accessing credit. In the process of development, it is not only the impact of tenure security on productive use of land but also on the way in which land markets interact with labor markets that become important. It is well recognized that during the process of economic development as economies grow, the share of the population working in the agricultural sector declines. Like the land policy, labor regulations however in many developing countries are not conducive to the development process. In China for example, the pervasive hukou system (a residency system that classifies its population as either urban or rural) has long been considered as one of the major obstacle to labor mobility. Some progress has been made to reform the hukou system since the late 1990s, but the actual impact of the reform and how the impact changes with local conditions are not clear. The proposed research is to examine whether and to what extent the policy and legal reforms that aimed to strengthen land property rights or promote labor mobility have achieved their intended objectives in different economic settings. Methodologically, the study aims to develop a conceptual framework that can not only assess the direct effect of the policy reforms, but also assess the indirect effect of the reforms. Within the framework, we can predict the effect of reforming the policy of one factor on the performance of the other factor and the overall economy. We then empirically test the predicted hypotheses using household level panel data or field experimental data. The research will not only produce numerous high quality peer reviewed publications, it is also of policy relevance as many developing countries in Asia and Africa are seeking policy guidance for their future reforms to improve land and labor policies.

Animal Health Component

(N/A)

Research Effort Categories

Basic

(N/A)

Applied

(N/A)

Developmental

(N/A)

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
606	0120	3010	20%
606	5330	3010	10%
606	6120	3010	20%
606	6020	3010	20%
606	6199	3010	15%
606	7310	3010	15%

Knowledge Area
606 - International Trade and Development;

Subject Of Investigation
5330 - Farm structures and related facilities; 6120 - International economy and sectors thereof; 6199 - Economy, general/other; 0120 - Land; 7310 - Experimental design and statistical methods; 6020 - The family and its members;

Field Of Science
3010 - Economics;

Keywords

Goals / Objectives
The overall goal of the research is to assess whether and to what extent the policy and legal reforms that aimed to strengthen land property rights or promote labor mobility have achieved their intended objectives in different social and economic settings. Methodologically, the study aims to assess both the direct effect and the indirect effect of the land reforms. We then empirically test the predicted hypotheses. In this specific project, we will focus on a small set of narrower objectives. Objectives 1-4 will focus on the land and labor reform in China using panel data. Objectives 5-7 will analyze the long-term benefit and cost of land reform in India. And objective 8 will focus on similar issues in Africa. Objective 1: Develop a conceptual and empirical model to analyze the impact of policy reforms (e.g., land laws, labor regulations) or structural and macro-economic factors on local leaders' behavior or farmers' investment and factor market participation, and quantify the magnitude of direct and indirect impacts of the policy reforms, and how were they distributed across the population. Objective 2: Determine whether remaining policy restrictions (tenure insecurity, restrictions on labor mobility) restrict investment or the operation of rural factor markets. If yes, determine the economic magnitude of these effects. Objective 3: Determine whether there are economies of scale in China's agricultural production for an average land size farmer and explore the range of farm size over which scale economies are present and for different crops. Determine whether land fragmentation is emerging as a limitation on efforts to increase agricultural productivity. If yes, how large is the effect To what extent are marginal products equalized across different factors Objective 4: Test whether the characteristics of rental transactions changed over time (i.e. duration of contracts, prices, and partners). If yes, what are the implications for productivity Are rental transfers helping to alleviate land fragmentation Objective 5: Develop a conceptual and empirical framework to analyze the impact of land reform on human capital accumulation in India. Investigate how the effect changes over time, and across gender and castes. Objective 6: Identify the presence or absence of inefficiency associated with reform land in comparison to owned land. In other words, we will investigate how efficient land covered by reform is compared to owned land. Objective 7: Develop a conceptual model to identify the potential impact of tenancy reform on market participation and empirically quantify the magnitude of reduction in market participation and the implied efficiency loss. Objective 8: Draw on experience from the India and China's work on land and labor relations to identify relevant issues (e.g., land titling, land legal and reform issues, land markets, migration, land and labor interactions, etc.) in the context of Africa. The issues will be broad in nature and will not be limited to any specific country. The expected outcomes include peer reviewed journal articles, PhD dissertations, presentations to academic audiences and policy makers, future projects.

Project Methods
Both conceptual and empirical frameworks will be used to achieve the objectives: To meet objectives 1-4, a conceptual framework will be developed to analyze the impact of land and labor policy reforms (and the existing policy restrictions) on the households' investment, production and market decisions. In this model, we will model the policy reforms (or policy restriction) as a reduction (or increase) of transaction costs and derive the comparative statics of the outcome variables w.r.t each of the policy variables. The model should be flexible enough to allow for both land and labor market imperfections. The model should also allow us to derive the impact of the non-policy changes (e.g. wage) on household's production, investment and market behaviors. We will then empirically test the hypotheses and quantify the direct and indirect impacts of policy changes. The empirical analysis will build on a very detailed two period (2000 and 2009) panel data of more than 1000 households in 6 provinces in China. The data on production, input use and household characteristics will be used to simultaneously estimate a production function and factor demand functions, which will not only allow us to test the existence or absence of economies of scale, but also allows us to test the efficiency use of different production factors (i.e. equality of market product to factor price) and examine how the efficiency changes over time. Finally, data on land rental contracts and from partners of land rental transactions allow us to achieve objective 4. To meet objective 5, we will first develop a conceptual framework to analyze the impact of land reform on human capital investment. We will then use a large data set which has information on the level of education for all the members of the 90,000 dynasty households (some members receiving education before land reform and others receiving after the reform) to empirically test the impact of reform on human capital investment using the difference-difference approach. To meet objectives 6 and 7, output and input data at the plot level will make the data set a perfect one to test the productivity difference between owned plot and reform plot, data from both partners involved in the same land rental or land sale's market transaction allow us to analyze the issues in objective 7. To meet objective 8, similar frameworks and empirical approaches from the India and China work will be applied to similar issues faced by the African countries using exiting panel data sets that have been collected by MSU teams over the years or new survey data. An impact evaluation method will also be used to estimate the impact of the Mozambique land-titling project. In particular, the all treatment communities (communities that will receive titling service) will be randomized over time. In this context, the communities that will receive the services in the earlier years are treatment groups and those that will receive the services in the later years as the control groups. Evaluation is to measure the mean gain in outcomes (for all the variables of interest) between the treatment and control communities.

Progress 10/01/08 to 09/30/13

Outputs
Target Audience: Academics, International Organizations, NGOS, governments, and policy makers, especially for those who are interested in improving the land and labor markets in the developing countries. Changes/Problems: There are a couple ofchanges in the project. As described in the Accomplishment Section,the significant delay in the implementation of the land titling interventions in Mozambique and Lesotho prevents us from fully achieving the objective 8. As a result, we were only able to collect the baseline surveyandanalyzed the baseline data forthe two impact evaluation projects.We need to wait for a couple more years to conduct a follow-up surveysin order torigorously evaluate the impacts of these projects, which will be one ofmy proposed studyin the next five years. As indicated earlier, we also did not achieve objective 3. To achieve objective 3 would require sufficient variation in farm size of Chinese farmers. Unfortunately, a majority of the existing data sets we have access to have limited variation in farm size, which prevented us from exploring this issue. The recent emergence of new farms with relativelylarge operational landsize in response to the better functioning of factor markets and rapid rise in off-farm opportunities would allow to explore this issue in the future research. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? The project provided graduate students opportunities toparticipate in various research activities, and to use the project materials including datasetsfor theirdissertation research.As a result, two dissertationshave beenproduced out of the project - one has been completed and another one is under minor revision.Besides the dissertation work, four studentscontributed to the completion ofthe research project through participation inawide range ofresearch activities (e.g., literature review, data analysis,co-writing research papers, etc.). Eight research papers derived from this project were co-authored with students. Of the eight papers,two have already been published and four are under review. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? The research findings have been presented in academic professional meetings (e.g., annual meetings of the Applied and Agricultural Economics Association, and triennial meetings of the International Association of Agricultural Economists), and in academic and policy workshops (e.g., World Bank annual land conferences, workshops on land tenure issues in Gates-Melinda Foundation, and Inter-American Development Bank, etc.) for more than 30 times. My research on land tenure issues have been widely cited by local researchers (from China, India, and Africa countries) in their academic and policy papers. Our baseline reports on Urban and Rural Land Titling projects in Mozambique weredistributed to a wide range of stakeholders forreview and presented in Mozambique toall the local stakeholders who are involved in the implementation of the land titling programs and are interested in land policy.To conduct research related activities, I have travelled to China, India, Mozambique and Lesotho multiple times. During my trip, I interacted widely with both technical people whoare responsible forimplementing our field works and also government officials who impact policies. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Land and labor are the two most important productive factors of rural households. Secure and transfer land and a well-functioning labor market are critical pre-conditions for economic development and poverty reduction. Governments in many developing countries have made tremendous efforts to adopt land and labor policies that are more conducive to economic growth over the past few decades. The empirical evidence on the impacts of these policy changes is scarce. The proposed research is to fill in this knowledge gap. The impacts of this project can be measured in a number of dimensions. The 5-year project generated 16 peer reviewed journal articles, 5 book chapters, two dissertations and six other research papers. The research findings have been presented in academic professional meetings (e.g., annual meetings of the Applied and Agricultural Economics Association, and triennial meetings of the International Association of Agricultural Economists), and in academic and policy workshops (e.g., World Bank annual land conferences, workshops on land tenure issues in Gates-Melinda Foundation, and Inter-American Development Bank, etc.) for more than 30 times. According to Google Scholar, the total number of citations of my works has increased considerably from less than 400 before 2008 to more than 1400 today. My success in collaboration and research productivity during this project cycle has also led to new research opportunities to continue to work on similar issues in future years. For example, I started to engage in a new research effort (jointly with the World Bank and Development and Research Center under China's State Council) to evaluate an important land titling and registration pilot program in Chengdu. My collaborators in India expressed interest in collaborating with me to study the impact of rising labor cost on agricultural technology and productivity. Except for objective 3 which was not addressed due to data constraints and objective 8 which was only partially achieved, all the rest objectives have been achieved. Below I will summarize how each of the objectives is met: Objective 1: Develop a conceptual and empirical model to analyze the impact of policy reforms (e.g., land laws, labor regulations) or structural and macro-economic factors on local leaders' behavior or farmers' investment and factor market participation, and quantify the magnitude of direct and indirect impacts of the policy reforms, and how were they distributed across the population. Objective 2: Determine whether remaining policy restrictions (tenure insecurity, restrictions on labor mobility) restrict investment or the operation of rural factor markets. If yes, determine the economic magnitude of these effects. Objectives 1 and 2 are closely related. To achieve both objectives, a modified household model was built to predict the impact of improvement of land/labor policies (which is treated as the reduction of transaction costs in the model) on household's market participation and ensuing effects on productivity and equity. The propositions from the conceptual model were further tested using data from China, India and Kenya. A few common findings emerged from these studies. We find while rental markets are both productive and equitable, the rental markets failed to function at their potential due to explicit (in the context of China and India) and implicit restrictions (in the case of Kenya). Study of the impact of the 2003 Land Law in China suggested that the land law is effective in terms of improving tenure security and the level of compensation in cases of land taking only in villages where the leaders are democratically elected. Objective 4: Test whether the characteristics of rental transactions changed over time (i.e. duration of contracts, prices, and partners). If yes, what are the implications for productivity? This objective was achieved through the study on the effects of land documents on land rental development in China. Using a panel data from Chinese Center for Agricultural Policy, we examined the impact of improvement of land tenure security (whether the parcel is protected by a formal document) on the relationship between land rental partners and draw the implication on productivity. This paper is currently in journal submission. Objective 5: Develop a conceptual and empirical framework to analyze the impact of land reform on human capital accumulation in India. Investigate how the effect changes over time, and across gender and castes. Using a large listing data from more than 200 West Bengal villages, we studied the impact of tenancy reform on human capital accumulation. Besides the standard variables on asset, production, the listing data include very detailed information on education attainments for three generations of each household and an indicator on whether the household receive reform land or not allow this study possible. We found that acquiring land through tenancy reform had positive effect on children' level of education and significantly narrowed the gap between girls and boys. Robustness check further confirmed that the improvement in children's education was not caused by other government programs. The analysis was summarized in Vandana Yadav's (one of my student) dissertation essay, which is now being revised for journal submission. Objective 6: Identify the presence or absence of inefficiency associated with reform land in comparison to owned land. In other words, we will investigate how efficient land covered by reform is compared to owned land. This objective was achieved through a study that compared the productivity and investment of plots acquired through tenancy reform to those plots that are owned by the same household. We used a unique data set that includes a large number of sample households who are both land reform beneficiaries and also own at least one parcel was also collected by EIT in collaboration with the World Bank. We found that the productivity and the level of investment was significantly lower than own land. Further robustness check confirms that the results are unlikely to be caused by unobserved heterogeneity or sample structure of the data. The paper was published American Journal of Agricultural Economics. Objective 7: Develop a conceptual model to identify the potential impact of tenancy reform on market participation and empirically quantify the magnitude of reduction in market participation and the implied efficiency loss. This objective was achieved by the study that was mentioned under objectives 1&2. Specifically, we used the panel data collected by the National Council for Applied Economic Research in India in 1982 and 1999. A modified household model was built to predict the impact of the restrictive aspects of the tenancy reform legislation on household participation in land rental markets. The theoretical prediction that the tenancy reform is likely to reduce the land rental transactions was confirmed by the empirical econometrics analysis using the NCAER panel data. The paper of this study was published in European Economic Review in 2008. Objective 8: Draw on experience from the India and China's work on land and labor relations to identify relevant issues (e.g., land titling, land legal and reform issues, land markets, migration, land and labor interactions, etc.) in the context of Africa.This objective was only partially achieved. Due to the significant delay in the project implementation in Mozambique and Lesotho, we were only able toanalyze the baseline survey data for the two impact evaluation projects for the MCC land titling projects in Mozambique and Lesotho. The original plan was to evaluate the impact by 2013. But this was not possible due to the fact that the interventionwas completed only a year ago and the intervention in Lesotho is still ongoing.We have to wait for a couple more years toevaluate the projects.

Publications

Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: K. Deininger, S. Jin and v. Yadav. "Does Sharecropping Affect Productivity and Long-term Investment? Evidence from West Bengal's Tenancy Reforms," Chapter 2 in S. Holden, K. Otsuka and K. Deininger (eds), Land Tenure Reform in Asia and Africa: Assessing Impacts on Poverty and Natural Resource Management. Palgrave Macmillan, New York, USA. (2013).
Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2012 Citation: Deininger, K., S. Jin and Hari Nagarajan. "Equity and Efficiency Impacts of Land Leasing Restrictions: Evidence in India" (with K. Deininger, and H. K. Nagarajan), Chapter 10 in T. Haque (ed), Land Policies and Inclusive Growth. Council for Social Development and Rural Development Institute (Landesa) 53 Lodi Estate, New Delhi-110003 (2012).
Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Xia, Fang. "Do Legal Reforms in Favor of Women Improve their Economic and Political Outcomes? Evidence from India," Ph.D. Dissertation, 2013. Major Professor: Songqing Jin.
Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Deininger, K., S. Jin, and V. Yadav (2013). "Does Sharecropping Affect Long-term Investment? Evidence from West Bengals Tenancy Reforms," American Journal of Agricultural Economics 95(3):772-790.
Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Jin, S., and T.S. Jayne (2013). "Land Rental Markets in Kenya: Implications for Efficiency, Equity, Household Income and Poverty,"Land Economics 89(May 2013):246-271.
Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Deininger, K., S. Jin and H. Nagarajan (2013). "Wage Discrimination in Indias Informal Labor Markets: Exploring the Impact of Caste and Gender," Review of Development Economics 17:130-147
Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: Deininger, K., S. Jin, and F. Xia. Does Inheritance Law Reform Improve Womens Access to Capital? Evidence from Urban India, paper presentation at the American Association of Applied Economics Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., August 4-6, 2013.
Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Under Review Year Published: 2013 Citation: Jin, S., E. Payongayong, M. Maredia, G. Shultink, and A. Miguel. 2013. "Impact Evaluation of Site-specific Activities under the Land Tenure Services Project: Report of the Baseline Survey Conducted in Two Rural Areas in Northern Mozambqiue," Baseline Report Submitted by Michigan State University to Millenium Challenge Cooperation. (2013)

Progress 01/01/12 to 12/31/12

Outputs
OUTPUTS: During the review period, my research again focused on land and labor institutions, legal institutions in China, India and Africa. Together with my students, colleagues from MSU and collaborators from outside, I worked on eight research papers. Using three India data sets from the World Bank, we analyzed the impacts of two legal reforms (inheritance law reform and reservation policy on local election) on women empowerment, children's education, local public services, political outcomes and further explored the options to sustain and improve productivity of tenancy reform land in West Bengal. Using three household panel data sets from China, we analyzed (1) the impact of land tenure security on household's labor allocation decisions including the effects on household's ability to exit the farm sector and to take on more lucrative alternative economic activities (2) impact of land documentation on the development and performance of rural land rental market (3) impact of internal migration and local off-farm employment on farming efficiency, and (4) the extent to which the impact of migrations on household's income and welfare varies with household definitions. This is important as different defintions were used in different studies in the literature. Using three existing data sets from Africa, we studied (1) the linkage between land access and food security and the extent to which farmers are able to access the optimal amount of cuitivated land (e.g., through the land rental market - the most important mechanism farmers especialy poor farmers use to access land on yearly basis), (2) impact of access to mobile phone on farmers' market decisions (3) impact of coffee market reform on household's welfare. I also allocate substantial amount of time on three impact evaluation projects in Africa (two MCC sponsored impact evaluation project of land titling program in Mozambique and Lesotho, and one on school feeding and agricultural development in Mozambique). As one of the Co-PIs for all the three projects, I was responsible for the design of evaluation strategies, survey instruments and sampling, baseline survey report writing and supervision of students to analyze survey data. Two baseline survey reports for the Mozambique project were written. My students and I actively presented our research in various professional meetings and policy oriented conferences. I was also active in advising graduate students. During the review period, I served as major professors for 4 Ph.D. students and as committee member for 16 other graduate students including several of them from the Economics Department and CARRS. Two of my students successfully defended their dissertations and are currently revising them for final submission. PARTICIPANTS: The main collaboratoring institutes include the World Bank, National Council for Applied Economic Research in New Delhi, Economic Information Technology in Kolkata, Chinese Center for Agricultural Policy in Beijing, Stanford University, IFPRI, Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, Millennium Challenge Cooperation (MCC), MCA-Mozambique, MCA-Lesotho. Colleagues within MSU include Jeffrey Riedinger, T.S. Jayne, Scott Loveridge, Abdoul Murekezi, Lindon Robison, Mywish Maredia, Thomas Reardon, Robert Shupp. Graduate students who contributed to various projects and co-authored papers are Fang Xia, Rie Muraoka, Hui Wang, and V. Yadav, Raul Pitoro and Jordan Chamblin. TARGET AUDIENCES: Academics, international organizations, NGOs, governments, and policy makers. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.

Impacts
The number of my citations has gone up quite considerably within a year(from 700 a year ago to more than 1000, by google scholar). My research was disseminated through a number of venues including professional meetings as well as publications in the World Bank's working papers series. Four of my research papers were selected for postal presentation in the IAAE Triennual Meeting in Brazil and one was slected for postal presentation in the 2012 AAEA Annual Meeting in Seattle. My students and My students and I were invited to present our research findings in the World Bank and Inter-American Bank's Workshops on land tenure security issues. Dr. Shouying Liu, deputy director of the Rural Division of Development and Resarch Center under the Chinese State Council asked me to join him to evaluate the impact of a land titling experiment in Chengdu, one of the most popular and influential experiment on land tenure in China. Professor Dilip Mookerjee (from Boston college and one of the best development economists) invited us to present our recent study on productivity of tenancy reform land in a forthcoming workshop on land reform in Kolkata, West Bengal in early January 2013. I was constantly requested to review manuscript from a wide range of journals on development topics. In the review period alone, I reviewed manuscripts for Journal of Development Economics, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Economic Development and Cultural Changes, Agricultural Economics and Chine Economic Review. I again served as one of the two topic leaders in the development subject for AAEA's 2012 Annual Meeting. My graduate students are well integrated into my research program. They are co-authors of six of my research papers. One student conducted summer intership in the World Bank. Two students successfully defended their dissertation. One student was offered two jobs (a teaching faculty position at the Grand Vally Univeristy and an economist position in CYMMIT).

Publications

1. Jin, S., and T. Jayne. 2012. "Land Rental Markets in Kenya: Implications for Efficiency, Equity, Household Income and Poverty," Land Economics (forthcoming).
2. Deininger, K., S. Jin and H. Nagarajan. 2012. "Wage Discrimination in India's Informal Labor Markets: Exploring the Impact of Caste and Gender," Review of Development Economics (forthcoming).
3. Jin, S., W. Yu, H. Jansen, and R. Muraoka. 2012. "The impact of Irrigation on Agricultural Productivity: Evidence from India," 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil 126868, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
8. Maredia, M., R. Pitoro, S. Jin, E Payangoyang and G.Schultink. 2012. "Impact Evaluation of Site‐specific Activities under the Land Tenure Services Project: Report of the Baseline Survey Conducted in Two Urban Areas in Northern Mozambique,", Baseline Report Submitted by Michigan State University to Millennium Challenge Corporation.
9. Maredia, M., R. Pitoro, S. Jin, E Payangoyang and G.Schultink. 2012. "Impact Evaluation of the Policy Monitoring and Capacity Building Activities of the Land Tenure Services Project in Mozambique: Baseline Report Based on the TIA 2008 Survey Data", Baseline Report Submitted by Michigan State University to Millennium Challenge Corporation.
7. Nagarajan, H.K., K. Deininger and S. Jin. 2011. "Can political reservations affect political equilibria in the long-term Evidence from local elections in rural India," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Berlin 2011 59, Verein fur Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
5. Wang, H, J. Riedinger, and S. Jin. 2012. "Land Documents, Tenure Security and Land Rental Market in China," 2012 Annual Meeting, August 12-14, 2012, Seattle, Washington 124598, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
6. Deininger, K., S. Jin, H. Nagarajan. 2012. "Equity and Efficiency Impacts of Land Leasing Restrictions: Evidence in India" (with K. Deininger, and H. K. Nagarajan), Chapter 10 in T. Haque (ed), Land Policies and Inclusive Growth. Council for Social Development and Rural Development Institute (Landesa) 53 Lodi Estate, New Delhi-110003 (in press).
4. Deininger, K., S. Jin., and X. Fang. 2012. "Moving off the farm: Land institutions to facilitate structural transformation and agricultural productivity growth in China," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5949, The World Bank.

Progress 01/01/11 to 12/31/11

Outputs
OUTPUTS: During the review period, I was active in undertaking research activities that contribute to achieving the overall goal and specific objectives of my program. Together with collaborators from MSU and from outside, and my graduate students, I have been working on 6 research papers 5 of which have been submitted to journals. Using two India data sets from the World Bank, we have completed two research papers. The first paper examines the investment and productivity impact of converting tenancy reform land to land of full ownership, a topic is currently hotly debated in India. And the second paper evaluates the impact of a nation wide randomized political reservation policy on household's economic outcomes, and female empowerment in terms of labor supply and knowledge of contraception. Both papers have been submitted to journals and are related to objectives 1, 2, 6 and 7. We also worked on two data sets from China. Using a panel data set from Chinese Center for Agricultural Policy (CCAP), we analyzed the impact of more secured land tenure (especially through the implementation of 2003 Rural Land Contracting Law) on household's participation in rural land and labor markets as well as on the broader rural economic transformation in China. One paper has been submitted to a journal and another paper will be submitted sometime in Spring 2012. The second Chinese data set was acquired from the National Bureau of Statistics to study the impact of economic crisis on internal migration. We have done extensive data analysis both at member level and at the household level in the past few months. We are in the process of summarizing the results into research papers. The China work on land and migration issues are directly related to objectives 1, 2 and 4. I also spent substantial time and effort working on land related research projects in Africa. The paper on impact of land rental market on poverty reduction in Kenya (with T.S. Jayne) has been revised and resubmitted to the Land Economics. I am one of the co-PIs for three projects in Africa (two MCC sponsored impact evaluation project of land titling program in Mozambique and Lesotho, and one on school feeding and agricultural development in Mozambique). While we are not in the stage of conducting rigorous econometrics analysis for any of the three projects, I have been heavily involved in all the design and data collection activities. I have travelled to Mozambique and Lesotho to provide various technical supports. I have played a major role in designing impact evaluation methods and sampling strategies, developing baseline questionnaire, supervising baseline survey analysis, and supervising and participating in baseline report drafting. The activities in Africa are directly related to objective 8. I was active in presenting my research findings in professional meetings and policy oriented conferences. I was also active in advising graduate students. During the review period, I served as major professors for 4 graduate students and as committee member for more than a dozen other students. PARTICIPANTS: My research activities involve colleagues from MSU and collaborators from outside: The main collaborators for the India projects include the World Bank, National Council for Applied Economic Research in New Delhi, Economic Information Technology in Kolkata. Major collaborators of my China work include Chinese Center for Agricultural Policy in Beijing, Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, and the World Bank. My major collaborators of African projects include numerous colleagues in AFRE, Millenium Challenge Cooperation (MCC), MCA-Mozambique, MCA-Lesotho. My graduate students who contributed to various projects and co-authored some of the papers are Xia Fang, Rie Muraoka, Hui Wang, and Vandana Yadav. TARGET AUDIENCES: Academics, international organizations, NGOs, governments, and policy makers, especially for those who are interested in improving land and labor policies in developing countries. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.

Impacts
My longterm collaboration with World Bank and some local institutions in China and India helped my research tremendously in terms of data access and financial support for graduate students. The World Bank funded $30,000 to support our research on the land reform issues in India and China during the review period and have informally promised to continue its support (at least one research assistantship) for the next few years to work on related topics in China, India and Africa. My research is widely cited as the number citation continues to climb up (from 600 a year ago to approximately 700 now, by google scholar). My research was disseminated through a number of venues including professional meetings as well as publications in the World Bank and WIDER's working papers series (two of the most popular working paper series in the development economics field). Three of my research papers were selected for presentation in the AAEA annual meeting. I was also invited to present our research findings in the World Bank and WIDER Workshop. Professor Jintao Xu from Beijing University asked me to join him to study the impact of forest land tenure in China and Professor Jikun Huang from CCAP expressed interests in working with me on land and other rural development topics in China. Renmin University is also interested in collaborating with us to study food safety and other development topics. India National Council for Applied Economic Resarch and the World Bank are interested in collaborating with me in further research on land reform issues in India. I was requested to review manuscript from a wide range of journals on development topics (including Journal of Development Economics, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Economic Development and Cultural Changes, etc.). I was again asked to serve as one of the two topic leaders for AAEA annual meeting in the development subject. My graduate students are well integrated into my research program. Two of them defended their proposals during this period and four of my research papers under review are coauthored with my students.

Publications

L. Robinson, R. Shupp, S. Jin, M. Siles, and T. Ferrarini. (2011) "The Relative Importance of Selfishness and Social Capital Motives," Journal of Socio-Economics (forthcoming).
Murekezi, A., S. Jin and S. Loveridge. (2011) "Do Organizational Forms of the Coffee Supply Chain Matter in Poverty Reduction," Development in Practice (forthcoming).
Robison, L., M. Siles, S. Jin (2011), "Social Capital and the Distribution of Household Income in the United States: Panel evidence from 1980, 1990 and 2000," Journal of Socio-Economics 40(5): 538-547.
K. Deininger, S. Jin, H. Nagarajan and F. Xia. 2011. "Does Female Reservation Affect Long-term Political Outcomes Evidence from Rural India." World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 5708.
K. Deininger, S. Jin and V. Yadav. 2011. "Long-term Effects of Land Reform on Human Capital Accumulation Evidence from West Bengal" UNU-WIDER Working Paper No. 2011/82.

Progress 01/01/10 to 12/31/10

Outputs
OUTPUTS: During this report period, my research activities again focused on factor markets (rural land, labor and credit) and rural governance issues. Using World Bank's existing data from India, we have completed 3 research papers two of which are a continuation of last year's analyses and one of which is based on analysis conducted during the review period. The first paper assessed the long-term impact of tenancy reform on human capital accumulation, the issue that was largely neglected in the literature. The second paper examined the impact of access and quality of irrigation on crop productivity. And the third paper evaluated the impact of local political reservation to women on local political equilibrium in India. Using the same data set, we also conducted econometrics analysis to assess the potential productivity gain of converting the reform land to land of full ownership. We are currently writing up a research paper. These activities are directly contributing to objectives 5-7. I have also completed a paper (with a Chinese collaborator and Z. Guan) on determinants of rural formal and informal credit access. The paper was selected by AAEA for presentation at the 2010 annual meetings. We are currently revising the paper for journal submission. I have also obtained two large existing data sets to study China's land and labor issues. The first data set is a 2 round (2000 and 2009) panel household survey data for 1100 households from 6 provinces collected by the Chinese Center for Agricultural Policy. The data will allow us to assess the impact of rural land tenure and rural labor market improvement on rural economy. The second existing data set is a 5-year panel household survey from National Bureau of Statistics. The panel data from 2000 households from 8 provinces covering the period from 2005 to 2009 is an ideal data set to analyze the impact of global economic crisis on Chinese internal labor migration and migrants households. The econometric analyses based on both data sets allow us to achieve objectives 2 and 4. I also allocated significant portion of my time and effort to study land tenure and land market issues in African. We (T.S. Jayne and I) have revised and resubmitted a paper on impact of land rental markets on rural poverty in Kenya to American Journal of Agricultural Economics. We are currently conducting a baseline survey for a land evaluation project in Mozambique. My contribution to the evaluation project include design of overall evaluation strategy, survey instrument development, sampling design and coordinating the implementation of the project including a trip to Mozambique in August. I also conducted a fact-finding mission in Lesotho during December in response to MCC's request for a potential opportunity to evaluate a land titling project in Lesotho. All these activities in Africa is directly related to our objective 8 of the project. I also presented our research findings numerous times at professional meetings, academic institution, and the World Bank. I served as the major professor for 3 Ph.D. students and helped many other students as a thesis/dissertation committee members. PARTICIPANTS: My research activities involve a number of collaborators both from MSU and from other academic and research institutions. The main collaborators for the China related projects include the World Bank, Chinese Center for Agricultural Policy under the Chinese Academy of Sciences,Standford University, Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, and the Harbin Institute of Technology and colleagues at MSU. The main collaborators of my India work include the World Bank, and the India National Council for Applied Economics Research. And my collaborators for the Africa work include Millenium Challenge Cooperation, MCA-Mozambique, MCA-Lesotho and colleagues at MSU. My students who have directly contributed to the various research projects (and also co-authors of some of the research papers) are Xia Fang, Rie Muraoka, Vandana Yadav. TARGET AUDIENCES: Academics, international organizations, NGOs, governments, and policy makers, especially for those who are interested in improving the land and labor markets in the developing countries. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.

Impacts
My long-term collaboration with the World Bank enables me and my students to continue to have access to high quality data sets for doing policy relevant empirical research. Three research papers were produced jointly with my students during the review period. Due to the satisfactory performance of the project, the World Bank has also extended the project to another year with additional funding of $40k. Our collaboration with MCC in Mozambique also brings us potential research opportunities to work on similar projects in other African countries. MCC has requested us to undertake a project to assess an MCC-sponsored land reform program in Lesotho. We are currently developing a work plan and budget and expect to receive a total fund exceeding one million dollars. My expertise in land tenure research has been recognized by colleagues from other institutions. I was invited by the World Bank, WIDERS to present my research findings to their workshops. I was also requested to review 8 manuscripts for economics/agricultural economics journals including European Economic Review, Economic Development of Cultural Changes, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, World Development, China Economic Review, and Agricultural Economics, all during the review period. I was requested by peers to serve as one of the two topic leaders for the AAEA development section for the 2011 AAEA annual meetings. The main task for the topic leader is to select reviewers to review submitted abstracts for paper and poster session, to re-evaluate and assign selected papers and posters into different thematic sessions and coordinate with authors to submit their final papers or posters. I have not only been quite successful in getting most of my work published, my research has also widely cited by others. According to Google Scholar, my research papers and articles have been cited for more than 600 times, up by 80 times from the last review period. This is not a small number in light of the fact the number for an average economic paper to be cited is close to zero. Most of my research is also policy relevant. My work related to impact of land reform in India will directly contribute to the current policy debates among policy makers and practitioners in India on whether the tenancy land should be converted to land with full ownership. My study on impact of global financial crisis on migration in China will contribute to the broad knowledge on impact of and measures to copy with large scale shocks. Our current work in Mozambique will not only directly evaluate the current MCC's intervention of land policy in Mozambique, the results will provide guidance for scaling up effort of the program in Mozambique and will also guide future practices in other African countries.

Publications

1. Jin, S., H. Ma, J. Huang, R. Hu,and S. Rozelle (2010). "Productivity, Efficiency and Technical Change: Measuring the Performance of China's Transforming Agriculture," Journal of Productivity Analysis 33:191-207.
2. Jin, S., J. Huang, and S. Rozelle (2009)." The Production Performance of China's Transforming Agriculture," Choices: 24(4)1-7.
3. Jin, S., J. Huang, and S. Rozelle (2010). "Agricultural Productivity in China," Chapter 9 in Julian Alston, Bruce Babcock and Philip Pardey (eds), The Shifting Patterns of Agricultural Production and Productivity Worldwide. Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa.
4. Zhang, L., S. Jin, K. Deininger, J. Huang and S. Rozelle (2010). "Rights and Rental: Are Rural Cultivated Land Policy and Management Constraining or Facilitating China's Modernmization" Chapter 4 in Jean Oi, Scott Rozelle, and Xueguang Zhu (eds), Growing Pains: Tension and Opportunity in China's Transition. Walter H Shorenstein Asia Pacific Research Center at Stanford University.
5. Sai, T, Z. Guan, and S. Jin (2010). "Formal and Informal Credit Markets and Rural Credit Demand in China," Paper selected to present at the 2010 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, 2010, Denver, Co, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
6. Jin, S., F. Xia, and K. Deininger (2010). "Political Reservation and Women's Empowerment: Evidence from Local Governments in Rural India," Poster selected to present at the 2010 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, 2010, Denver, Co, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

Progress 01/01/09 to 12/31/09

Outputs
OUTPUTS: During this report period, I continued my research efforts in investigating the land and labor markets in developing countries. Together with my graduate students, colleagues from MSU and collaborators from other institutions, my research efforts contributed to the overall goal and a number of specific objectives of the project. Using a large panel data set from China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), we analyzed the impact of China's internal migration on rural households' income and consumption. The issues addressed in this study are directly related to objectives 1 and 2 of the project. Based on the newly collected data from a household survey in West Bengal (in which I had played key role in the survey design and survey implementation), we have completed a paper on the long-term impact of tenancy reform on human capital accumulation. Hence, we have achieved objective 6. I also allocated significant portion of my efforts to study relevant issues in African. Using panel data from 1142 Kenya smallholder households over four survey periods, I completed a paper (with T.S. Jayne) on impact of land rental markets on rural poverty in Kenya. My efforts in the MCC's Mozambique Land Titling Project include a 10-day trip to Mozambique during the summer, design of the survey questionnaire, and constant phone and email interactions with MCC, MCA (MCC's counterparts in Mozambique) and our local MSU team in Maputo. Our efforts led to a much improved and implementable evaluation strategy and sample design. The baseline survey will be conducted in summer 2010. The Kenya and Mozambique work is directly related to objective 8. I also spent substantial amount of time and effort acquiring data and other resources to support my research activities in 2010 and beyond. I collaborated with the Chinese Center for Agricultural Policy (CCAP), Stanford University, IFPRI on a follow-up household survey of 1000 households from 6 provinces in China. The fieldwork has been completed and the data are currently being cleaned by our collaborators in CCAP. The data from this survey and those from an early round survey in 2000 will form a panel data set which allows us to assess the impact of land tenure improvements on rural economy and rural governance, an important respect of the project that is directly related to objectives 2 and 4. The West Bengal data will also allow us to assess the potential productivity gain of converting the reform land (a type of land in which a tenant has protected, long-term use rights) to land with full ownership. This analysis is to achieve objective 7. The research efforts during the review period have yielded 5 research papers and a book chapter. I also gave 8 presentations at professional meetings, academic institution, Gates Foundation and the World Bank. I served as the major professor for 3 Ph.D. students and 1 M.S. student. I got my students heavily involved in my research program. Two of my students have completed two research papers with me, and another student is currently working with me on a research paper. PARTICIPANTS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period. TARGET AUDIENCES: Academics, international organizations, NGOs, governments, and policy makers, especially for those who are interested in improving the land and labor markets in the developing countries. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.

Impacts
While most of the academic and/or policy impact of my research papers and research activities won't be realized after a few years, my research is expected to have (or may have already had) some immediate impact. My collaboration with NBS and the World Bank on labor and migration issues not only yielded a research paper during the review period, it also provides me an unique opportunity to acquire their newly collected panel data to research the impact of the current economic crisis on migration, with focus on economic and welfare impact on migrants and their families and communities at the origins. The proposal on this topic is under review for internal CDFP grant. I also plan to submit the proposal to external funding agencies. The paper on long-term impact of land reform on human capital accumulation should make a good contribution to the land reform literature by going beyond the traditional focus on productivity. This paper together with the current analysis on productivity impacts of converting reform land to land with full ownership will directly contribute to the current policy debates among policy makers on whether the tenancy land should be converted to land with full ownership. The Kenya paper not only contributes to the scarce literature on land rental issues in Africa, the main findings of the paper that land rental markets play an important role in raising incomes and reducing poverty for rural poor residents also endorse the Government of Kenya's current effort to promote the development of land rental markets. My expertise on land tenure and land markets is also well recognized by colleagues in other institutions. I have been invited by the World Bank, the Gates Melinda Foundation, and the BASIS to present my research findings to their workshops during the review period. I was also requested to review 7 manuscripts from economics journals such as European Economic Review, Economic Development of Cultural Changes, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Journal of Agricultural Economics, World Development, Agricultural Economics, and IAAE symposium, all during the review period.

Publications

Jin, S., and K. Deininger (2009),"Land Rental Markets in the Process of Rural Structural Transformation: Productivity and Equity Impacts from China," Journal of Comparative Economics 37:629-646.
Deininger K. and S. Jin (2009), "Securing Property Rights in ransition: Lessons from Implementation of China's Rural Land Contracting Law," Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 70:22-38.
Jin, S. and K. Deininger (2009), "Linking Investment Climate and Household Surveys to Identify Key Constraints of Rural Nonfarm Activity: Evidence from Tanzania," Journal of African Economies 18:319-361.
Deininger,K., S. Jin,and H. Nagarajan (2009),"Determinants and consequences of land sales market participation: Panel evidence from India," World Development 37:410-421.
Deininger,K., S. Jin,and H. Nagarajan (2009), "Impacts of Land Reform on Poverty Reduction and Economic Growth, Evidence from India," Journal of Development Studies 45:496-521.
Jin, S., E. Meng, S. Rozelle, and J. Huang (2009), "Wheat Diversity and Total Factor Productivity in China," Chapter 10 in Erika Meng and John Brennan (eds), Economic Analysis of Diversity in Modern Wheat, Science Publishers, Enfield, NH, U.S.
Deininger, K., S. Jin, and V. Yadav (2009), "Impact of Land Reforms on Human Capital Formation: Household Level Evidence from West Bengal," 2009 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, 2009, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 49969, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.