RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Can Customary Land Tenure Facilitate Agricultural Productivity Growth? Evidence from Burkina Faso
JF Land Economics
JO Land Econ
FD University of Wisconsin Press
SP 441
OP 455
DO 10.3368/le.96.3.441
VO 96
IS 3
A1 Kusunose, Yoko
A1 Thériault, Véronique
A1 Alia, Didier
YR 2020
UL http://le.uwpress.org/content/96/3/441.abstract
AB In Burkina Faso, land is managed through customary tenure, which discourages land rentals and sales. Yet it permits land transactions through an institution called borrowing. This study investigates whether the borrowed status of land affects the seasonal crop and input choices as well as longer-term, productivity-enhancing investments made on it. Analysis using nationally representative, plot-level data from the Enquête Permanente Agricole suggests that borrowed land is more intensively farmed in terms of cropping and inputs. We find no evidence of borrowed lands having fewer erosion-preventing investments or of being fallowed less than nonborrowed (inherited) land. (JEL O13, O17)