The World Bank recently published a comprehensive statement on land reform policy,
the first in 30 years, that self-proclaims market-assisted land reform as a key
policy to achieve not only efficiency, but even more importantly, equity. At the
core of this ‘neo-populist neoclassical’ orthodoxy is: 1) the
long-term pursuit of individual property and associated rights; 2) an idealized
notion of the egalitarian and efficient small farmer based on the well-known inverse
relation between farm size and productivity; and 3) a static view of rural markets
blinding one to the negative and unforeseen consequences by landlords in the face of
reform. This article critically examines the validity of these core assumptions in
light of current calls for market-assisted land reform in Nepal. A major conclusion
is that given the evidence, the presumed benefits of such reforms are ideologically
driven, and therefore, will unlikely provide a much needed escape from poverty for
millions of Nepali citizens.
Adelman, I.
(1995) Volume I: Institutions and Development Strategies.
Volume II: Dynamics and Income Distribution. The Selected Essays of Irma
Adelman, prefaced by P. Streeten.
Aldershot: Edward Elgar Press
.
Asian Regional Team for Employment Promotion (ARTEP)
(1994) The Challenge for Nepal.
Bangkok: International Labor Organization
.
4.
Atkins, F.
(1988)
‘Land Reform: A Failure of Neoclassical Theorization?’
, World Development16(8):
935-946
.
5.
Banerjee, A.
and
Ghatak, M.
(2002)
‘Empowerment and Efficiency: Tenancy Reform in West Bengal’
, Journal of Political Economy110(2).
6.
Bardhan, P. K.
(1984) Land, Labor, and Rural Poverty.
Oxford: Oxford University Press
.
7.
Barker, R.
and
Herdt, R. W.
(1985) The Rice Economy of Asia.
Washington, DC: Resources for the Future
.
8.
Bernstein, H.
(2004)
‘Changing before our Very Eyes: Agrarian Questions and the
Politics of Land in Capitalism Today’
, Journal of Agrarian Change4(1&2):
190-225
.
9.
Bhandari, R.
(1994) ‘Dynamic Efficiency in Semi-Feudal Contracts
Through Interlocked Markets’, USAID Report #145823566757, pp.
1-85,
USAID-Nepal
.
10.
Bhandari, R.
(2001) The Land Tenure System in Nepal: An Obstacle or
Catalyst for Economic Growth and Agricultural Modernization?World Bank
Report.
Kathmandu, Nepal: World Bank
.
11.
Binswanger, A.
,
Deininger, K.
and
Feder, G.
(1995) ‘Power, Distortions, Revolt, and Reform
in Agricultural Relation’, in
J. R. Behrman
and
T. N. Srinivasan
(eds) Handbook of Development Economics.
Amsterdam: Elsevier
.
12.
Bobrow-Strain, A.
(2004)
‘(Dis)Accords: The Politics of Market-Assisted Land Reforms in
Chiapas, Mexico’
, World Development32(6):
897-903
.
13.
Borras, S.
(2003)
‘Questioning Market-Led Agrarian Reform: Experiences from Brazil,
Colombia and South Africa’
, Journal of Agrarian Change3(3):
367-394
.
14.
Borras, S.
(2006)
‘Redistributive Land Reform in Public (Forest) Land? Rethinking
Theory and Practice with Evidence from the Philippines’
, Progress in Development Studies6(2):
123-145
.
15.
Brasselle, A. S.
,
Gaspart, F.
and
Platteau, J. P.
(2002)
‘Land Tenure Security and Investment Incentives: Puzzling
Evidence from Burkina Faso’
, Journal of Development Economics67(2):
373-418
.
16.
Byres, T. J.
(2004)
‘Introduction: Contextualizing and Interrogating the GKI Case for
Redistributive Land Reform’
, Journal of Agrarian Change4(1&2):
1-16
.
17.
Carter, M.
,
Boucher, S.
and
Barham, B.
(2004)
‘The Impact of Market Friendly Reforms on the Operation of Credit
and Land Markets in Honduras and Nicaragua’
, World Development33:
107-128
.
18.
CBS
(1962) National Sample Census of Agriculture 1961/62 Nepal.
19.
CBS
(1972) National Sample Census of Agriculture 1971/72 Nepal.
20.
CBS
(1985) National Sample Census of Agriculture 1981/82 Nepal.
21.
CBS
(2001) Highlights: National Sample Census.
22.
CBS
(2002) Central Bureau of Statistics National Sample Census of
Agriculture 2001/2 Nepal.
Kathmandu, Nepal: National Planning Commission,
His Majesty’s Government of Nepal
.
23.
CBS
(2004) Analysis of Results: National Sample Census.
24.
Deininger, K.
(2003) Land Policies for Growth and Poverty Reduction.
Oxford: World Bank/Oxford University Press
.
25.
De Janvry, A.
,
de Janvry, A.
,
Gordillo, G.
,
Platteau, J. P.
and
Sadoulet, E.
(2001) Access to Land, Rural Poverty and Public Action.
Oxford: Oxford University Press
.
26.
Deraniyagala, S.
(2005)
‘The Political Economy of Civil Conflict in Nepal’
, Oxford Development Studies33(1):
47-62
.
27.
Dutta, B.
,
Ray, D.
and
Sengupta, K.
(1989) ‘Contracts with Eviction in Infinitely
Repeated Principal Agent Relationships’, in
P. Bardhan
(ed.) The Economic Theory of Agrarian Institutions.
Oxford: Clarendon Press
.
28.
Dyer, G.
(2004)
‘Redistributive Land Reform: No April Rose. The Poverty of Berry
and Cline and GKI on the Inverse Relationship’
, Journal of Agrarian Change4(1&2):
45-72
.
29.
Ghimire, K.
(2001) ‘Land Reform and Peasant Livelihoods: The
Social Dynamics of Rural Poverty and Agrarian Reforms in Developing
Countries’,
UNRISD
.
30.
Gine, X.
(2005) ‘Cultivate or Rent Out? Land Security in
Rural Thailand’, World Bank Working Paper (January).
31.
Griffin, K.
,
Rahman, A. Z.
and
Ickowitz, A.
(2002)
‘Poverty and the Distribution in Land’
, Journal of Agrarian Change2(3):
279-330
.
32.
HMG, Nepal
(1996) National Sample Census of Agriculture,
1991/1992.
Kathmandu: Central Bureau of Statistics,
Department of Land Reforms
.
33.
Huntington, S. P.
(1968) Political Order in Changing Societies.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press
.
34.
Jansen, K.
and
Roquas, E.
(1998)
‘Modernizing Insecurity: The Land Titling Project in Honduras’
, Development and Change29:
81-106
.
35.
Kevane, M.
(1996)
‘Agrarian Structure and Agricultural Practice: Typology and
Application to Western Sudan’
, American Journal of Agricultural Economics78-78
.
36.
reprinted in
M. Ricketts
(ed.) Neoclassical Microeconomics. Volume 2. Schools of
Thought in Economic Series. Number 3.
Aldershot/Brookfield, VT: Elgar/Gower
, 1988.
37.
Marshall, A.
(1961) Principles of Economics.
London: Macmillan
.
38.
Ministry of Land Reforms
(1998) Proposal for Land Reform System in Nepal (in
Nepali).
Kathmandu, Nepal: His Majesty’s
Government of Nepal
.
39.
Moore, D.
(2004)
‘The Second Age of the Third World: From Primitive Accumulation
to Global Public Goods’
, Third World Quarterly25(1):
87-109
.
40.
Mookherjee, D.
(1997) ‘Informational Rents and Property Rights
in Land’, in
J. Roemer
(ed.) Property Rights, Incentives, and Welfare.
New York: Macmillan Press
.
41.
Olson, M.
(1964) The Logic of Collective Action.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
42.
Patnaik, U.
(1987) Peasant Class Differentiation. A Study in Method with
Reference to Haryana.
Delhi: Oxford University Press
.
43.
Perelman, M.
(2000) The Invention of Capitalism: Classic Political Economy
and the Secret History of Primitive Accumulation.
Durham, SC: Duke University Press
.
44.
Ramachandran, V. K.
and
Swaminathan, M.
(eds) (2002) Agrarian Studies: Essays on Agricultural
Relations in Less-Developed Countries.
New Delhi: Tulika
.
45.
Regmi, M.
(1963) Land Tenure and Taxation, Volume 1 (four vols).
Berkeley: Institute of International Studies,
University of California
.
46.
Regmi, M.
(1976) Landownership in Nepal.
Berkeley: University of California Press
.
47.
Regmi, M.
(1978) Thatched Huts and Stucco Palaces: Peasants and
Landlords in 19th Century Nepal.
New Delhi: Vikas
.
48.
Regmi, M.
(1988) An Economic History of Nepal, 1846-1901.
Varanasi: Nath
.
49.
Rostow, W. W.
(1960) The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist
Manifesto.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
.
50.
Scott, J.
(1974) The Moral Economy of the Peasant. Rebellion and
Subsistence in Southeast Asia.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press
.
51.
Sender, J.
and
Johnston, D.
(2004)
‘Searching for a Weapon of Mass Production in Rural Africa:
Unconvincing Arguments for Land Reform’
, Journal of Agrarian Change4(1/2):
142-164
.
52.
Shaban, R. A.
(1987)
‘Testing Between Competing Models of Sharecropping’
, Journal of Political Economy95:
893-920
.
53.
Shrestha, N. R.
(1991) Landlessness and Migration in Nepal.
Boulder, CO: Westview Press
.
54.
Singh, N.
(1983) ‘Tenurial Insecurity and Land
Improvements’, in
P. Bardhan
(ed.) Land, Labor, and Rural Poverty.
Oxford: Oxford University Press
.
55.
Thapa, G. (1989) ‘The Impact of New Agricultural Technology on
Income Distribution in the Nepalese Tarai’, PhD dissertation, Cornell
University, Ithaca, NY.
56.
Verma, B.
and
Bromley, D.
(1987)
‘The Political Economy of Farm Size in India: The Elusive Quest’
, Economic Development and Cultural Change35(4):
791-808
.
57.
Walker, T. S.
and
Ryon, J. G.
(1990) Village and Household Economies in India’s
Semi-Arid Tropics.
Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press
.
58.
Walras, G.
(1954) Elements of Pure Economics.
London: Allen and Unwin
.
59.
World Bank
(2001) A World Bank Country Study. Nepal: Poverty and
Income.
Washington, DC: World Bank
.
