Rural Demography, Public Services and Land Rights in Africa: A Village-Level Analysis in Burkina Faso Margaret S. McMillan, William A. Masters and Harounan Kazianga World Bank April 26, 2012
Can local public services and property rights be explained by population size, as in Boserup (1965)? Study design and preview of results Identification strategy Data and survey methods Econometric results
Motivation Burkina Faso has had unusual shocks to rural population Onchocerciasis control => migration into river valleys; Spatial variation in shocks across villages could permit identification of demographic effects on collective action Our goal is to capture many kinds of public response We have population census data for 1985, 96 and 2006 Use village distance to rivers to instrument exposure Use village elders to recall changes in public services and land tenure.
Time-varying indexes of village amenities Property rights a principal-components index of: (a) Use rights to cropland (undefined, individual, family, community) (b) Transactions for cropland (parcels ever sold or rented) (c) Authorities for resolving conflicts (informal, traditional or elected) (d) Commons demarcation and regulation (pasture land, forest)
Linking migration to land rights Migration shocks add variance to natural increase Exogenous change in adult population over 25 years Migration patterns clearly tied to rivers and oncho control Identification of causal effect remains limited Migrants are also rural Burkinabe, but differ from non-migrants Proximity to rivers could affect land rights through other channels Data on public services and property rights are novel Analysis benefits from researchers pre-commitment Study design published, presented before data was collected Future papers can do much more
Preview of results Strong links between population and public services Instrumented estimates are much larger than OLS Elasticities of distance to population are between 0.4 and 1.4 Magnitude of links to population are large The increase in proximity of public services associated with moving from the 1 st to 5 th quintile of predicted village population is larger than the 10 years a time trend from 1996 to 2006 No correlation between population and property rights Instrumented estimate is larger but not significantly positive Significant time trend with 2006 values above 1985 and 1996
Onchoceriasis Control in West Africa (1974-2002): Aerial spraying to eliminate blackfly vectors, followed by treatment with ivermectin Estimated Onchocerciasis Prevalence in West Africa Prior to control (1974) After control (2002) Source: WHO, Onchocerciasis Control Programme (www.who.int/apoc/onchocerciasis/ocp).
Location of Surveyed Villages and Rivers Used for IV Estimation Mali Niger Ghana Togo Benin Cote d Ivoire
Survey Method Sample is all 747 villages in the national farm survey of the Office of Agricultural Statistics in Burkina Faso Respondents were a focus group of village leaders convened by the enumerator Survey asks respondents to characterize: the situation now and when it was established; the previous situation and when it was established; and the situation before that, and when it was established Responses permit construction of 3-step time series we use only the situation in 1985, 1996 and the present most variables are continuous (distance to each service); some are categorical (e.g. able to sell land?) some villages failed to report some data, but all n>2,000
Property rights variables Land tenure questions rights to use cropland are undefined, individual, family, or community-based; transactions for cropland include sales or rentals; authorities for resolving conflicts are informal, traditional or elected; common-property pasture and forest is demarcated and access is regulated by quotas or taxes
Questionnaire design: property rights N Questions Réponse VIII.1 Type de droit appliquée pour les terres de culture (si la réponse est non, mettre des croix à année de début d application) Type de droit appliquée (1=Oui ; 0=Non) Année de début d application VIII.1.1 Propriété individuelle VIII.1.2 Propriété collective-familiale VIII.1.3 Propriété collective-communautaire VIII.2 Location, vente et prêts de terres de culture (si la réponse est non, mettre des croix à année de début d application) Possibilité de transaction (1=Oui ; 0=Non) Année de début d application VIII.2.1 Est-ce que la terre peut-être louée? VIII.2.2 Est-ce que la terre peut-être vendue? VIII.2.3 Est-ce que la terre peut-être prêtée?
Property rights and land use across sample villages in Burkina Faso Percentage of observations Land Rights in sample Rights over crop land Not defined 14.4 Communal 10.0 Familial 59.9 Individual 15.7 Existence of sales or rental of crop land None 92.4 At least one sale or rental has occurred 7.7 Role of traditional authorities in solving crop land conflict None 63.8 Some 36.2
Property rights and land use across sample villages in Burkina Faso Percentage of observation Land Rights s in sample Role of elected authorities involved in solving crop land conflict None 81.9 Some 18.1 Demarcation and regulation of pasture land No delimited pasture land 71.7 Pasture land delimited, access not regulated 22.9 Pasture land delimited, access regulated by tax or quota 5.4 Demarcation and regulation of forest land No delimited forest land 70.1 Forest land delimited, access not regulated 15.9
Selected descriptive statistics Land ownership rights Land Year Individual Familial Communal markets 1985 0.41 0.665 0.1 0.056 [0.018] [0.018] [0.011] [0.009] 1996 0.423 0.671 0.099 0.064 [0.019] [0.018] [0.011] [0.009] 2006 0.453 0.669 0.104 0.107 [0.018] [0.017] [0.011] [0.011]
Selected descriptive statistics Regulated access to land for: Distance to Year Pasture Forest nearest Crop river 1985 0.152 1.353 2.75 65.986 [0.013] [0.024] [0.033] [1.782] 1996 0.186 1.44 2.751 66.876 [0.015] [0.027] [0.034] [1.818] 2006 0.24 1.516 2.786 66.336 [0.016] [0.029] [0.033] [1.777]
Regression specification Main regression is: I jkt P jt X j t jkt Where: I is infrastructure or institutional service to the village; P is population of the village; time dummies; X province fixed effects is error term; j indexes villages; t indexes time (1985, 1996, 2006)
OLS estimates of main regression Land ownership rights Land Regulated access Individual Family Comm. markets Pasture Forest Crop Land (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18) (19) Lnpop. 0.114-0.043*** 0.008 0.019*** 0.019 0.033-0.030 (0.062) (0.011) (0.007) (0.006) (0.011) (0.027) (0.021) Obser. 2,076 2,076 2,076 2,076 2,076 2,076 2,076 R-squared 0.002 0.007 0.001 0.012 0.008 0.010 0.000
OLS estimates of main regression Land ownership rights Land Regulated access Commun Individual Family al Markets Pasture Forest Crop Land (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18) (19) Lnpop. 0.020-0.051*** 0.003 0.020*** 0.013-0.046** -0.033 (0.012) (0.012) (0.008) (0.006) (0.009) (0.018) (0.023) Constant 0.527*** 1.001*** 0.040-0.077* 0.103 1.593*** 2.823*** (0.088) (0.082) (0.058) (0.041) (0.066) (0.127) (0.158) Observations 1,843 1,843 1,843 1,843 1,843 1,843 1,843 R-squared 0.022 0.026 0.019 0.039 0.013 0.026 0.001
VARIABLES All provinces First stage results for IV estimates (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) Non-Volta Volta Valley All Non-Volta regions regions provinces regions Volta Valley regions log distance to river -0.247*** -0.183*** -0.312*** [0.041] [0.057] [0.059] year==1996-0.111-0.324 0.030-0.165-0.297-0.089 [0.244] [0.368] [0.330] [0.231] [0.373] [0.293] year==2006-0.896*** -0.687* -1.107*** -0.916*** -0.733* -1.109*** [0.242] [0.369] [0.324] [0.255] [0.411] [0.324] distancex1996 0.053 0.082 0.038 0.066 0.077 0.067 [0.060] [0.088] [0.084] [0.057] [0.089] [0.075] distancex2006 0.174*** 0.079 0.265*** 0.179*** 0.090 0.267*** [0.060] [0.089] [0.082] [0.063] [0.099] [0.082] Constant 7.942*** 7.885*** 8.023*** 6.975*** 7.160*** 6.815*** [0.164] [0.236] [0.230] [0.029] [0.038] [0.043] Observations 2,076 959 1,117 2,076 959 1,117 R-squared 0.189 0.143 0.217 0.489 0.452 0.513 F-Stat Inst 19.20 10.82 11.79 12.44 10.67 6.602
2SLS estimates of main regression Land ownership rights Land Regulated access Crop Individ. Family Communal markets Pasture Forest Land (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18) (19) Lnpop. 0.053** 0.005-0.023* 0.044** -0.034-0.125-0.034 [0.025] [0.020] [0.014] [0.022] [0.067] [0.130] [0.072] Obser. 2,076 2,076 2,076 2,076 2,076 2,076 2,076
Conclusion Can property rights be explained by population size, as in Boserup (1965)? Land tenure shifted toward more individual rights Less communal ownership Emergence of land markets Looking forward, We demonstrate use of villagers recall and census data to detect and explain variation in land tenure and public services Evidence suggestive of a strong association between population density and land tenure.