Property Rights and Social Dependence: How Informal Institutions Shape Land Formalization in Weak States

• In Event: Development, Statebuilding, and Instability in Sub-Saharan Africa

Brief Overview

We study a randomized land titling program in a large city in the D.R. Congo. The program increased the take-up of land titles. The program had social effects, causing treated citizens to withdraw from local informal institutions.

Authors

• Pablo Balan, Tel Aviv University

• Jonathan Weigel, University of California-Berkeley

• Augustin Bergeron, University of Southern California

• Gabriel Tourek, University of Georgia