| I look at how geography, trade, and monitoring costs shaped rights over land. labor, and capital in rural West Africa. and at how these institutions constrain agricultural production in the present. I explain the causes and consequences of these institutions using formal models and evidence taken from archives, court records, oral histories, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data. and modern surveys. I use institutional and GIS data. to demonstrate that sparse population in Africa explains many of its pre-colonial institutions, including weakly defined land rights, slavery. and polygyny. I apply the model to the Egba of Nigeria and show that their institutions responded to changes in the availability of land over the nineteenth century. I use a. model of the defense of property to explain why many Igbo groups in Nigeria curtailed private rights over palm trees during the trade in palm oil. I support this model using evidence from colonial court disputes over palm harvesting. I conduct a meta-analysis of the literature on land rights and investment in Africa, and find that both context and research design have affected published findings. Using multiple data sets from West Africa. I show that land rights consistently impact investment in tree planting and fallow. |
