The Case for Redistributional Land Reform in Developing Countries

It is a widely held view among experts in economic development that the best launching pad a country can have if it is to achieve fast and equitable growth is an egalitarian agrarian system composed of small family farms. Taiwan, with its early post-war land reform, is often held up as the paragon. However, between the knowledge (of the experts) and the action (of the politicians and other influential people) there has usually been an enormous gap. A key element of the argument that such a land distribution can be both equitable (in both the short and the long run)1 and growth-promoting has long been the inverse relationship (IR) between size of farm and land productivity. Several decades ago this arguably became one of the ‘stylized facts of development’, accepted by nearly everyone who had looked at the issue, questioned only by a few and usually on weak grounds. But of the various such ‘stylized facts’, this one has probably entered with least force into the policy process. Behind the gap between knowledge and implementation lies a long and frustrating story. On the knowledge front, Michael Lipton’s Land Reform in Developing Countries: Property Rights and Property Wrongs is the latest and by far the most complete review of where we are and where we should be going. This is, to put it conservatively, an important book. It is the first comprehensive and up to date review of land reform issues in the developing countries in many years. In my opinion, it is one of the most important books ever written about agriculture in the developing countries. This conclusion is based in part on the book’s impressive breadth of coverage and depth of