Jean-Philippe Platteau

Institutions, social norms, and economic development

Part 1 The subject put into perspective: radicalism versus gradualism - the intellectual debate of the 1950s and 1960s Marx and Boserup - institutional development as an induced mechanism the new institutional economics - a comparative static approach privileging transaction costs and risk considerations social norms and fairness considerations the evolutionary approach to institutions. Part 2 Resource endowments and agricultural development: introduction physical isolation and transportation bottlenecks physical isolation and market underdevelopment physical isolation and constraints on the supply of public goods the complicating presence of technology constraints lessons from the debate on the aggregate supply response conclusion and policy implications. Appendix: optimal choice of agricultural policy mix. Part 3 Property rights in land - part 1 dividing the commons: introduction the view of the property rights school and the evolutionary followers limitations of the (qualified) property rights approach conclusion. Part 4 Property rights in land - part 2 individualisation of land tenure: introduction the ETLR (evolutionary theory of land rights) - a presentation the ETLR put to test - the efficiency effects the ETLR put to test - the induced demand-and-supply mechanism conclusion and policy implications. (Part contents).

Land tenure security and investment incentives : Puzzling evidence from Burkina Faso

Abstract The commonsense logic associating higher land security and higher incentives to invest has been recently called into question in the case of African agriculture. To be meaningful, empirical tests have to be carefully designed so as to take account of the possible endogeneity of the land rights variable. This is done in this paper by applying suitable econometric methods to the original data collected in Burkina Faso. The results obtained cast doubt on the existence of a systematic influence of land tenure security on investment. By reviewing the justifications for scepticism in the recent literature, we are able to conclude that the traditional village order, where it exists, provides the basic land rights required to stimulate small-scale investment.

Land relations under unbearable stress: Rwanda caught in the Malthusian trap.

This paper describes how the distribution of land access rights and the prevailing social fabric have evolved in a Rwandan village in the face of extreme land pressure. The study was conducted to gain a better understanding of the equity impact of land tenure individualization and the rising incidence of market transactions in such a context. The densely populated area studied during 1988-93 was in northwest Rwanda and belongs to the commune of Kanama in Gisenyi prefecture. Acute competition for land in a context characterized by too slow expansion of non-agricultural income opportunities has led to increasingly unequal land distribution and rapid processes of land dispossession through the functioning of the illegal land market and evolution of indigenous tenure arrangements. Also, the many land disputes and the threat of landlessness have led to rising tensions in social relations and even within the core of family life, paving the way for more overt expressions of discontentment and violence. A connection between those conditions and the civil war which erupted in 1994 is established.

The Ambiguous Impact of Inequality on Local Resource Management

Abstract The impact of inequality on the ability of human groups to undertake successful collective action is investigated with special reference to overexploitation of common property resources. In voluntary provision problems, on the one hand, inequality has an ambiguous impact on the feasibility of the efficient outcome even though better endowed agents contribute more to collective action. In regulated settings, on the other hand, inequality tends to reduce the acceptability of available regulatory schemes and, therefore, to make collective action more difficult.

Behind the market stage where real societies exist ‐ part II: The role of moral norms

This two‐part article is an attempt to clarify the social conditions upon which the viability and efficiency of the market system rest. It strives to show that the ‘embeddedness’ thesis, that is, an explanation based upon the existence of long‐run personal ties involving the use of reputation mechanisms among transactors, cannot fully elucidate the question as to how the problem of trust is solved in market societies. As explained in Part I, there are difficulties of both theoretical and empirical/historical kinds and these explain why the ‘market order’ needs to be sustained by private and public order institutions. In Part 11, the role of generalised morality in backing or supplementing such institutions is discussed in the light of game theory, and particular emphasis is put on the ability of moral norms to sustain honest behaviour by generating the right kind of preferences and establishing trust. The vexed problem of the dynamics of norm emergence and erosion is then addressed with a view to showing ...

Participatory Development in the Presence of Endogenous Community Imperfections

The participatory or decentralised approach to development is now favoured by most bilateral and multilateral aid organisations. At the root of this approach lies the belief that rural communities can be an effective channel of development if they receive a genuine delegation of powers and responsibilities. This article argues that there unfortunately exists a widespread tendency to downplay the community imperfections that plague many rural societies while simultaneously stressing market and state failures. In fact, such imperfections, as illustrated in the case of lineage-based societies of Africa, increase as development proceeds by way of expanding economic opportunities, growing resource scarcity, as well as rising aspiration and education levels. Under these circumstances, any early implementation of the approach runs a high risk of causing considerable disillusionment, as well as undue appropriation, by local elites operating within a logic of patronage, of the resources channelled through rural communities in this way.

The Risk of Resource Misappropriation in Community-Driven Development

Community-Driven Development (CDD) is being currently proposed as the main avenue to fighting poverty and circumventing the shortcomings of state-directed aid resources. One of the main difficulties in CDD programmes lies in their vulnerability to capture by local elites. The paper discusses the possibility of mitigating this problem through a so-called leader-disciplining mechanism (LDM) that relies on a sequential disbursement procedure supported by a fraud detection mechanism. On the basis of the LDM framework, it is argued in particular that too quick and massive a rush on CDD may prove self-defeating in the sense that the share of aid resources actually reaching the poor will be low if donor agencies are impatient to achieve results.

Mutual insurance as an elusive concept in traditional rural communities

During the last two decades, economists have paid increasing attention to the role of informal risk-sharing arrangements as a privileged way through which traditional rural communities can achieve a significant degree of protection against income fluctuations and other hazards beyond their control. This article however argues that when they enter into such arrangements members of these communities are guided by a principle of balanced reciprocity (they expect a return from any contribution or payment they make) rather than by a true logic of mutual insurance. More precisely, they do not conceive of insurance as a game where there are winners and losers and where income is redistributed between lucky and unlucky individuals. None the less, traditional agrarian societies have proven able to develop a restricted range of sustainable forms of mutual insurance that avoid the aforementioned problem.

An inquiry into quasi‐credit contracts: The role of reciprocal credit and interlinked deals in small‐scale fishing communities

In agrarian village societies beset with many hazards and uncertainties, people evolve various means of coping with risk. What is perhaps less known is that credit transactions can sometimes serve the function of reducing risk in such societies. This article is concerned with examining several insurance‐motivated credit arrangements in small‐scale fishing communities. A hunger insurance mechanism of ‘reciprocal credit’ and a system of interlinked contracts aimed at insuring against risks in the spheres of labour and marketing relations will be extensively dealt with. Moreover, the concept of ‘triadic’ relationships will be shown to have special relevance in the case of traditional insurance arrangements aiming at controlling problems of ‘moral hazard’.

A Framework for the Analysis of Evolving Patron-Client Ties In Agrarian Economies

Abstract This paper looks systematically at the various factors that can account for the disappearance or the transformation of the institution of patronage that used to structure labor and other relationships in many agrarian societies of the past. It is an attempt to offer a unifying framework capable of guiding ones attention to the relevant variables and to the way they interact. In this process, the rather simplistic view, according to which there is a unique linear path through which patronage evolves, is called into question and a number of different scenarios are instead presented. These alternatives are illustrated with reference to Asia.