Submissions Accepted for Presentation at the World Bank Land Conference 2024

In Madagascar, there is a dearth of studies on how migrants access land through land markets (purchases and tenancy contracts). This paper relies on qualitative and quantitative data carried out in 2018 to explore the functioning of land markets in a rural region in Western Madagascar. The focus on domestic in-migrants is a gateway to explore the effects of markets in terms of inclusion and equity. The econometric models show that migrants are not facing exclusion for accessing land through land markets, beyond a financial constraint that is also affecting natives, and that is mostly binding for purchases, not for tenancy contracts. Migrants who manage to overcome the barriers and to purchase land end up practically with the same average amount of land in property that the natives. For the natives, the local land purchase market also contributes to reduce land inequalities that are due to initial inheritance differences.

Due to rapid urbanization and economic development in China, cities have experienced a massive influx of migrants from other parts of China since the late 20th century, leading to the emergence of urban villages characterized by informal settlement of diverse populations, substandard living conditions, inadequate infrastructure and essential services. Urban villages have become focal points for regeneration efforts aimed at achieving sustainable urban growth and improving living conditions. However, urban village regeneration increasingly generates concerns about gentrification effects, displacement, and even conflicts between various stakeholders. Original residents, especially migrants are usually excluded in the decision making, while their behavior towards relocation policy is very likely to hinder the process of urban village regeneration. This paper investigates migrants’ preferences for the alternative relocation policy designs through the stated choice experiment approach, aimed at providing insights for urban planners and policy makers to make more inclusive regeneration policies.

We examine misallocation by investigating how measurement errors in output and inputs affect the estimation of agricultural productivity loss associated with resource misallocation. We find that measurement errors account for a substantial part of the estimated total factor productivity (TFP) variations (30-45% at the national level). Failing to account for measurement errors would considerably overestimate the gains from resource reallocation. Based on the preferred Two-Stage least squares (2SLS) estimation of the production function, measurement errors in both output and inputs will lead to an overstatement of production gains by 2-3-fold if not adjusted in productivity estimation. The results are consistent regardless of whether the analysis is explored by analyzing household productivity variation across years or across households within local communes. The findings caution against relying on estimates unadjusted for measurement error of potential gains from reallocation in cost-benefit analysis of reallocation. Certain caveats and assumptions of the analysis are discussed.