Land Property Rights and Agricultural Investment in the Philippines: Experimental Evidence on Impacts and Mechanisms

Last registered on February 13, 2020

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

Land Property Rights and Agricultural Investment in the Philippines: Experimental Evidence on Impacts and Mechanisms

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0000168

Initial registration date

December 16, 2013

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

December 16, 2013, 12:12 PM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated

February 13, 2020, 3:45 AM EST

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Country

Philippines

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

Snaebjorn Gunnsteinsson

Affiliation

University of Maryland, College Park

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status

Completed

Start date

2014-04-25

End date

2017-10-30

Keywords

Agriculture

Additional Keywords

property rights, agrarian reform

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

OW4/1990

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of formal property rights on agricultural investment and the channels – access to credit, tenure security, and gains from trade – through which this effect may occur. The research question will be tested within the context of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) in the Philippines, where collective titles have been issued to groups of farmers as a transition mechanism to hasten the land acquisition and distribution process. The government is now subdividing these collectively titled lands to formalize individual property rights (referred hereafter as parcelization), and the study will exploit this program to conduct a cluster-randomized controlled trial (randomizing collective titles into treatment and control groups) with the goal of understanding the impact of rights on investment and the degree to which the lack of formal rights limits financial market development.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Gunnsteinsson, Snaebjorn. 2020. "Land Property Rights and Agricultural Investment in the Philippines: Experimental Evidence on Impacts and Mechanisms." AEA RCT Registry. February 13. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.168-2.2

Former Citation

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

The intervention being evaluated is the parcelization program described in the abstract. The Department of Agrarian Reform is subdividing land that is collectively titled by conducting land surveys and issuing individual titles to those farmers previously listed under the collective title. Note that although land may be collectively titled, a distinction must be made between farm ownership and management: most of the farms under these titles are farmed individually, not collectively.

Intervention Start Date

2014-10-06

Intervention End Date

2015-05-06

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

agricultural investment, output, profit, and welfare

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

The heart of the evaluation design is a cluster-randomized controlled trial that randomly selects collective titles to be subdivided, or "parceled out". The control group will not be parcelized for at least two years of the evaluation, allowing sufficient time for farmers to make significant agricultural investment decisions before a follow-up survey is conducted.

Experimental Design Details

We will collect data on farmers' parcels whether they are inside the subdivided area or not. This will help us at follow-up to distinguish between different mechanisms behind investment by comparing 'outside' parcels (outside of the subdivided area) of farmers in the treatment and control groups. These are not affected by new sets of property rights we may detect investment changes due to increased access to capital or other types of spillover effects from getting property rights over land inside the subdivided area.

Randomization Method

Randomization done in office by a computer

Randomization Unit

Collective land titles

Was the treatment clustered?

Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

500 collective titles

Sample size: planned number of observations

2800 farmers

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

250 treatment collective titles, 250 control collective titles

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name

University of Maryland, College Park

IRB Approval Date

2013-11-18

IRB Approval Number

488988-1

Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?

Yes

Intervention Completion Date

March 01, 2018, 12:00 +00:00

Data Collection Complete

Yes

Data Collection Completion Date

February 08, 2020, 12:00 +00:00

Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)

324

Was attrition correlated with treatment status?

Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations

631

Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms

159 treatment titles, 165 control titles

Data Publication

Is public data available?

Yes

Public Data URL

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/2LYWNU

Program Files

Yes

Program Files URL

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/2LYWNU

Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials

Description

Impact evaluation report

Citation

Castro-Zarzur,Rosa; Gordoncillo,Prudenciano Uljer; Gunnsteinsson,Snaebjorn; Jarvis,Forest Brach; Johnson,Hillary C.; Perova,Elizaveta; Srouji,Peter Gabriel. Land Rights in Transition : Preliminary Experimental Evidence on How Changes in Formal Tenure Affect Agricultural Outcomes, Perceptions, and Decision-making in the Philippines (English). Washington, D.C. : World Bank Group. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/701041593703934375/Land-Rights-in-Transition-Preliminary-Experimental-Evidence-on-How-Changes-in-Formal-Tenure-Affect-Agricultural-Outcomes-Perceptions-and-Decision-making-in-the-Philippines

URL

https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/701041593703934375/pdf/Land-Rights-in-Transition-Preliminary-Experimental-Evidence-on-How-Changes-in-Formal-Tenure-Affect-Agricultural-Outcomes-Perceptions-and-Decision-making-in-the-Philippines.pdf