Can Land Registration Increase Willingness to Pay for Agricultural Inputs? Short-Term Experimental Evidence from Women Farmers in Mozambique
Claire Boxho, Andrew Brudevold-Newman, Joao Montalvao, Michael O’Sullivan
Most rural land in Africa is not formally documented, potentially leading to low tenure security and limited land investment incentives. We test whether subsidies for women farmers in Mozambique can boost the impact of land registration on agricultural investment. In a first stage, half of study participants were offered assistance obtaining a no-cost land registration certificate. In a second stage, all participants were offered a package of agricultural inputs, at a randomly selected subsidy. While we find high demand for land registration, it did not significantly increase willingness to pay for the agricultural inputs, regardless of subsidy level. In contrast, subsidies had a large effect on willingness to pay: every 2,000MZN increase in subsidy increased purchase probability by 11 percentage points. Our findings cast doubt on the land registration-investment policy argument and suggest that liquidity constraints are a more important constraint undermining women farmers’ investment incentives.
Event: World Bank Land Conference 2024 - Washington
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