Land Inequality or Productivity: What Mattered in Southern Vietnam after 1975?

Abstract

Land redistribution and agricultural collective production were the key components of agrarian reforms implemented by the Vietnamese Communist Party in the south of the country after 1975. Land inequality was serious in the region under the Republic of Vietnam's regime. The new government struggled with agricultural collectivisation contributing to the decline in rice productivity. This study explains the persistence of a market-based agricultural production in the southern economy under the new political regime. Beside the economic reasons and arguments of local peasants' everyday politics cited in the literature, we argue that the de facto political power of the middleclass landowners was an important factor impeding the performance of agricultural cooperatives. It also implies that agricultural productivity was more vital than land inequality during the study period. We apply the model of Acemoglu and Robinson explaining how de facto political power helps elites to maintain their economic institutions in spite of a political change.

Is small beautiful? An empirical analysis of land characteristics and rural household income in Vietnam

“…By comparison, the majority of southern rural households have between 1 and 2 plots. The fundamental reason for this outcome is that the equitable allocation of land policy was not implemented, and instead, land distribution was primarily allocated based on land held before the 1975 reunification (Dang 2010; Bui and Preechametta 2016; Trần 2018).…”

Assessment of the effect of landowner type on deforestation in the Brazilian Legal Amazon using remote sensing data

“…Our analysis showed an unequal distribution of land in the BLA, with the very large landowners occupying the largest area of the territory and the very small landowners occupying the smallest area, although the former had fewer properties than the latter. This inequality is observed worldwide (Bui & Preechametta 2016, Flower 2018, Abubakar 2021), but the level of inequality differs among countries (Adamopoulos 2008). In the case of Brazil, this inequality was reported by Pacheco (2009), who stated that 83% of the small landowners held less than 100 ha and controlled just 11.3% of all agricultural land.…”

Transformative Pathways of Agrarian Reform: Comparative Bibliometric Insights of Southeast Asia and Indonesia Cases

“…However, challenges such as landlord conflicts and limited access to support services hindered CARL's implementation (van Es & Bruins, 2023;Drbohlav et al, 2017). Similarly, Vietnam faced resistance to land ownership restructuring post-1975, resulting in low cooperative participation (Bui & Preechametta, 2016). Thailand transitioned to private land ownership in the wake of monarchy dissolution in 1932, initiating agrarian reform under the Agricultural Land Reform Act of 1975 (Swardhana & Jenvitchuwong, 2023).…”

“…Land ownership serves not only as an asset or investment but also as an indicator of well-being, manifesting as private ownership that influences social interactions (Widodo, 2017). Individual land ownership is the primary determinant of the success or failure of agricultural production, as the stability of land rights is expected to encourage families to invest effort and implement agricultural technology in land management (Bui & Preechametta, 2016). While securing land ownership status is a crucial step, in the agricultural sector, land ownership alone is insufficient (Mizero et al, 2018), as legal guarantees for land do not directly enhance the "productive value" of land (Widodo, 2017).…”