TY - JOUR
T1 - Land tenure and land-use in a developing city
T2 - a quantitative spatial model applied to Kampala, Uganda
AU - Bird, Julia
AU - Venables, Anthony J.
PY - 2020/9
Y1 - 2020/9
N2 - Land rights and tenure systems are an important factor behind poor housing and inefficient land-use in developing country cities. In Kampala, Uganda, four systems of land tenure coexist, allowing a detailed study of the effects of these on household and firm location decisions. Spatially disaggregated data across the city suggest that the presence of a traditional land tenure system (called mailo) skews land-use towards informal housing and away from business and commercial activities. Using a structural model of the city we show that this due to mailo having a positive value for its occupants, attributable to mailo-specific amenity benefits and/ or rent caps. We use the model to investigate the effect of converting all mailo land in the city to leasehold. Despite direct loss of amenity experienced by mailo residents, aggregate city income may rise substantially because of more efficient land-use. Manufacturing firms move into formerly mailo areas and form new clusters of activity. This increases urban wages, particularly among the low skilled, and raises aggregate urban real incomes by 2% in the absence of localisation economies and as much as 6.7% in the presence of such economies of scale.
AB - Land rights and tenure systems are an important factor behind poor housing and inefficient land-use in developing country cities. In Kampala, Uganda, four systems of land tenure coexist, allowing a detailed study of the effects of these on household and firm location decisions. Spatially disaggregated data across the city suggest that the presence of a traditional land tenure system (called mailo) skews land-use towards informal housing and away from business and commercial activities. Using a structural model of the city we show that this due to mailo having a positive value for its occupants, attributable to mailo-specific amenity benefits and/ or rent caps. We use the model to investigate the effect of converting all mailo land in the city to leasehold. Despite direct loss of amenity experienced by mailo residents, aggregate city income may rise substantially because of more efficient land-use. Manufacturing firms move into formerly mailo areas and form new clusters of activity. This increases urban wages, particularly among the low skilled, and raises aggregate urban real incomes by 2% in the absence of localisation economies and as much as 6.7% in the presence of such economies of scale.
KW - Land-tenure
KW - Land-use
KW - Quantitative spatial model
KW - Uganda
KW - Urban
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85088374409&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jue.2020.103268
DO - 10.1016/j.jue.2020.103268
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85088374409
SN - 0094-1190
VL - 119
JO - Journal of Urban Economics
JF - Journal of Urban Economics
M1 - 103268
ER -