Does Rising Landlessness Signal Success or Failure for Vietnam’s Agrarian Transition?

van de Walle, Dominique; Ravallion, Martin

Does Rising Landlessness Signal Success or Failure for Vietnam’s Agrarian Transition?

2006

van de Walle, Dominique | Ravallion, Martin

In the wake of reforms to establish a free market in land-use rights, Vietnam is experiencing a pronounced rise in rural landlessness. To some observers this is a harmless by-product of a more efficient economy, while to others it signals the return of the pre-socialist class-structure, with the rural landless at the bottom of the economic ladder. The authors' theoretical model suggests that removing restrictions on land markets will increase landlessness among the poor, but that there will be both gainers and losers, with uncertain impacts on aggregate poverty. Empirically, they find that landlessness is less likely for the poor and that the observed rise in landlessness is poverty reducing on balance. However, there are marked regional differences, notably between the north and the south.

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AGROVOC Keywords

agrarian reform agrarian structure agricultural growth agricultural land agricultural productivity agriculture cultivated land development projects diversification farmer farmers farmland farms food consumption household consumption housing human capital income insurance land consolidation land law land markets land ownership land reform land tenure landlessness livelihoods living standards mountainous areas poverty reduction private ownership public works rural areas rural development unemployment

Bibliographic information

Publisher

World Bank, Washington, DC

Other Subjects

Poor; South asian; Credit markets; Aggregate poverty; Rural; Land titles; Incidence of poverty; Poverty rate; Land demand; Landless laborers; Land inequality; Poverty incidence; Farm activities; Poverty reducing; Food output; Asset poverty; Land tenure reform; Poverty measures; Post- reform; Landless households; Inequality; Low living standards; Rural community; Wage rates; Residential land; Distribution of land; Poor farmers; Land reforms; Rural households; Consumption measure; Agricultural output; Allocation of land; Economic efficiency; Transition economies; Farm output; Concentration of land; Land holdings; Agricultural wage; Farm activity; Schooling; Post-reform; Rural workers; Farm production; Household consumption per capita; Decline in poverty; Consumption expenditure; Idiosyncratic shocks

License

Policy Research Working Paper; No. 3871http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/World BankCC BY 3.0 Unported

Source

Policy Research Working Paper; No. 3871

In AGRIS since: 2014-09-15

Format: AGRIS AP

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Links

http://hdl.handle.net/10986/8956

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