Land Tenure and Agricultural Investment

Last registered on November 10, 2023
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Land Tenure and Agricultural Investment
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0002315
Initial registration date
July 31, 2017

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
August 02, 2017, 11:21 AM EDT

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

Last updated
November 10, 2023, 6:04 PM EST

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

Locations

Country
Zambia
Region
Eastern Province

Primary Investigator

Name
Ajay Shenoy
Affiliation
U.C. Santa Cruz
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Heather Huntington
PI Affiliation
The Cloudburst Group
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Daniel Mattingly
PI Affiliation
Yale
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2014-06-12
End date
2017-08-25
Keywords
Agriculture, Environment & Energy, Governance
Additional Keywords
land tenure
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
The primary objective is to determine whether strengthening a farmer's perceptions of the security of land tenure makes her more likely to make short-term and long-term investments in her land. The overarching policy question of interest is: “How do changes in property rights that strengthen a farmer’s perception of long term security over farmland affect a farmer’s decision to make investments---in particular, a long-term investment like agroforestry---on their own farms?” The evaluation breaks this into two key research questions for hypothesis testing. First, does the intervention strengthen farmer's perception of tenure security? And assuming it does, does it make the farmer more willing to make investments?

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Huntington, Heather, Daniel Mattingly and Ajay Shenoy. 2023. "Land Tenure and Agricultural Investment." AEA RCT Registry. November 10. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.2315-2.0
Former Citation
Huntington, Heather, Daniel Mattingly and Ajay Shenoy. 2023. "Land Tenure and Agricultural Investment." AEA RCT Registry. November 10. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/2315/history/200882
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Land Tenure Treatment: Activities under the land tenure intervention consisted of establishing Village Land Committees (VLCs), conducting participatory mapping, and facilitating the issuance of customary land certificates.

Agroforestry: Activities under the agroforestry intervention consisted of establishing Farmer Groups in treatment villages, establishing nurseries and distributing seedlings, and providing training and agricultural extension support services about agroforestry to farmer groups.
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2014-10-01
Intervention End Date
2016-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Primary: dummy for whether household fallows land; dummy for whether household engages in agroforestry
Secondary: Perceptions of land tenure security, agricultural yields, asset index
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The study uses a four-arm village-level RCT. The groups are: control, agroforestry extension, tenure-security strengthening activities, both. Villages were randomized into these four treatments across four chiefdoms: Mnukwa, Mkanda, Mshawa, and Maguya. A comparison of findings in agroforestry villages versus control and land tenure versus control provides the average program impact on each of these components. The comparison of the average outcomes in the group receiving both program components provides evidence about synergy between agricultural extension and land tenure security.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
randomization done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
Village
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Control (69 villages), Agroforestry (69 villages), Land Tenure (69 villages), or Agroforestry + Land Tenure (69 villages).
Sample size: planned number of observations
At the time of the baseline survey: 3525 households
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
See Planned Number of Clusters
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Clark University IRB
IRB Approval Date
2014-05-01
IRB Approval Number
2013-118
IRB Name
Clark University IRB
IRB Approval Date
2017-05-21
IRB Approval Number
2013-118
IRB Name
ERES Converge
IRB Approval Date
2017-06-21
IRB Approval Number
2017-May-050
IRB Name
ERES Converge
IRB Approval Date
2014-06-10
IRB Approval Number
2014-Apr-010
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
Yes
Intervention Completion Date
January 01, 2017, 12:00 +00:00
Data Collection Complete
Yes
Data Collection Completion Date
August 10, 2017, 12:00 +00:00
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
244
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
No
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
2809
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
60 control, 61 agroforestry, 59 land tenure, 64 both
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
Yes
Public Data URL
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2021.102632

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Program Files

Program Files
Yes
Program Files URL
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2021.102632
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Abstract
There is broad agreement among the most prominent observational studies that tenure insecurity deters investment. We present new experimental evidence testing this proposition: a land certification program randomized across villages in Zambia. Our results contradict the consensus. Though the intervention improved perceptions of tenure security, it had no impact on investment in the following season. The impact is still zero even after a cross-randomized agroforestry extension relaxes financial and technical constraints to agroforestry investment. Though relaxing these constraints has a direct effect, it is not enhanced by granting land tenure, implying tenure insecurity had not been a barrier to investment.
Citation
Heather Huntington, Ajay Shenoy, Does insecure land tenure deter investment? Evidence from a randomized controlled trial, Journal of Development Economics, Volume 150, 2021, 102632, ISSN 0304-3878, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2021.102632.
URL
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2021.102632

Reports & Other Materials