An economic analysis of land titling in Honduras

<p>In 1982 the governments of Honduras and the United States signed a contract that established the <em>Proyecto de Titulación de Tierras</em>, or land titling project. This project was initiated primarily to provide titles to small coffee farmers on State-owned land. Among the ex...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Larson, J, Larson, Janelle B. Montaner
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: 1995
Subjects:
_version_ 1826294272319553536
author Larson, J
Larson, Janelle B. Montaner
author_facet Larson, J
Larson, Janelle B. Montaner
author_sort Larson, J
collection OXFORD
description <p>In 1982 the governments of Honduras and the United States signed a contract that established the <em>Proyecto de Titulación de Tierras</em>, or land titling project. This project was initiated primarily to provide titles to small coffee farmers on State-owned land. Among the expected consequences of the project were increased access to resources, especially credit, for small farmers and increased on-farm investment due to this access to credit and increased security. It was hoped that a greater use of credit and investment would increase farm production and therefore the income and well-being of the farmers involved. In this dissertation, the land titling project is placed within the context of the history of agrarian reform in Honduras.</p> <p>The titling project called for a baseline study and final evaluation. These were carried out in 1983 and 1988, respectively. The author was able to obtain these data and re-interview the same farmers in 1993. These farmers are from two regions, one of which was titled and another which was not. The interviews gathered data on production, credit, use of inputs, investments, income and general socio-economic indicators. These data are used to determine the extent to which the goals of the tiding project have been met.</p> <p>A stochastic frontier production function is used to estimate farm-level technical efficiency. Following this, these technical efficiency scores are regressed on various factors such as education, credit and technical assistance to estimate their possible effects on technical efficiency. Finally, simultaneous equations are used to estimate the relationships among these variables. In general, ten years after the start of the project, the original goals have not been achieved. This analysis found that titling does not affect technical efficiency, access to credit, or the use of inputs. Education and technical assistance are the two factors that are consistently the most significant in meeting the project's stated goals. This analysis suggests that basic education and technical assistance, rather than expensive land titling projects, should be promoted to enhance access to credit, the use of inputs and increased technical efficiency.</p>
first_indexed 2024-03-07T03:43:04Z
format Thesis
id oxford-uuid:be8d5f2d-f676-45f1-8e3f-2b2a7f49b4e0
institution University of Oxford
language English
last_indexed 2024-03-07T03:43:04Z
publishDate 1995
record_format dspace
spelling oxford-uuid:be8d5f2d-f676-45f1-8e3f-2b2a7f49b4e02022-03-27T05:40:24ZAn economic analysis of land titling in HondurasThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06uuid:be8d5f2d-f676-45f1-8e3f-2b2a7f49b4e0Land tenureHondurasRegistration and transferLand titlesEconomic aspectsLand reformEnglishPolonsky Theses Digitisation Project1995Larson, JLarson, Janelle B. Montaner<p>In 1982 the governments of Honduras and the United States signed a contract that established the <em>Proyecto de Titulación de Tierras</em>, or land titling project. This project was initiated primarily to provide titles to small coffee farmers on State-owned land. Among the expected consequences of the project were increased access to resources, especially credit, for small farmers and increased on-farm investment due to this access to credit and increased security. It was hoped that a greater use of credit and investment would increase farm production and therefore the income and well-being of the farmers involved. In this dissertation, the land titling project is placed within the context of the history of agrarian reform in Honduras.</p> <p>The titling project called for a baseline study and final evaluation. These were carried out in 1983 and 1988, respectively. The author was able to obtain these data and re-interview the same farmers in 1993. These farmers are from two regions, one of which was titled and another which was not. The interviews gathered data on production, credit, use of inputs, investments, income and general socio-economic indicators. These data are used to determine the extent to which the goals of the tiding project have been met.</p> <p>A stochastic frontier production function is used to estimate farm-level technical efficiency. Following this, these technical efficiency scores are regressed on various factors such as education, credit and technical assistance to estimate their possible effects on technical efficiency. Finally, simultaneous equations are used to estimate the relationships among these variables. In general, ten years after the start of the project, the original goals have not been achieved. This analysis found that titling does not affect technical efficiency, access to credit, or the use of inputs. Education and technical assistance are the two factors that are consistently the most significant in meeting the project's stated goals. This analysis suggests that basic education and technical assistance, rather than expensive land titling projects, should be promoted to enhance access to credit, the use of inputs and increased technical efficiency.</p>
spellingShingle Land tenure
Honduras
Registration and transfer
Land titles
Economic aspects
Land reform
Larson, J
Larson, Janelle B. Montaner
An economic analysis of land titling in Honduras
title An economic analysis of land titling in Honduras
title_full An economic analysis of land titling in Honduras
title_fullStr An economic analysis of land titling in Honduras
title_full_unstemmed An economic analysis of land titling in Honduras
title_short An economic analysis of land titling in Honduras
title_sort economic analysis of land titling in honduras
topic Land tenure
Honduras
Registration and transfer
Land titles
Economic aspects
Land reform
work_keys_str_mv AT larsonj aneconomicanalysisoflandtitlinginhonduras
AT larsonjanellebmontaner aneconomicanalysisoflandtitlinginhonduras
AT larsonj economicanalysisoflandtitlinginhonduras
AT larsonjanellebmontaner economicanalysisoflandtitlinginhonduras