Creeping Normalcy: Fractionation of Indian Land Ownership

Abstract

In 1992 the General Accounting Office (GAO) published a quantitative survey of Indian land ownership of twelve reservations, which was the first and still is the only survey of Indian land ownership. In our study we use 2010 data to show how ownership fractionation for these reservations has changed since the original GAO study. We find that, despite the whole of Congressional action regarding land fractionation, and the US Bureau of Indian Affairs' (BIA's) land consolidation programs, fractionation has not only continued, but BIA's complex recordkeeping workload has nearly doubled for the twelve reservations over the eighteen year interval. The GAO estimated that BIA's annual recordkeeping costs for these twelve reservations was between $40 and $50 million. With the addition of over a million new ownership records, due to fractionation, we estimate yearly recordkeeping costs have increased to $246 million in 2010. JEL-Code: O100, Y100.

Neighborhood Racial Characteristics, Credit History, and Bankcard Credit in Indian Country

“…Reservation area fixed effects, where 'reservation area' is the reservation containing or closest to the block of individuals' residence, absorb any reservation-level policies, attitudes, and socio-economic conditions, which might impact credit outcomes. These include, for example, the extent of trust land (see, e.g., Anderson and Lueck 1992, Laderman and Reid 2010, Akee and Jorgensen 2014 and the degree of land ownership fractionation (see, e.g., Russ and Stratmann 2014) Financial Institutions (Dimitrova-Grajzl et al 2015). Quarter fixed effects control for any changes in credit and other conditions that vary over time but are common to all areas under consideration, such as business cycle effects.…”

The chronic uncertainty of American Indian property rights

“…Although trusteeship enables tribes to preserve their land base as trust land, generally cannot be seized from creditors, is immune from state taxation, and income earned on trust land is exempt from state taxation (Crepelle, 2020), its more general consequence is to add costs to economic activities in Indian country (Miller, 2012(Miller, , 2018. The trouble with trust status is the complex federal bureaucracy that encumbers it, thereby reducing Indians' ability to find the most efficient use of their land even today (Russ and Stratmann, 2016). The IRA established rules that continue to severely restrict alienability of property (Shoemaker, 2016).…”