Rent-seeking Behaviour and its Economic Costs in Urban Land Transactions in Accra, Ghana

Antwi, Adarkwah; Adams, John

doi:10.1080/0042098032000116121

Cited by 46 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…The state defines these transactions as land leases, and the 1992 Constitution prohibits the creation of freehold interests in customary land and only allows for land leases. However, a normative structure for leases does not exist in practice (Antwi and Adams 2003), and most buyers are not clear about what will happen when their leases expire. Gough and Yankson (2000) found that only 25 per cent of land purchasing households they interviewed had paid ground rent to the municipal authority.…”

Section: Real Estate: Urban and Peri-urban Areasmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a survey conducted in 1995/6 of 233 land-purchasing households within peri-urban Accra, Gough and Yankson (2000) found that 60 per cent of the sample had not registered their land because they considered it too difficult or unnecessary. In a survey conducted in 1999 of 286 land-purchasing households in Accra, Antwi and Adams (2003) found that nearly 78 per cent of the sample had not formally registered their land. A considerable proportion of those with registered plots had spent more than five years to get land titles.…”

Section: Contemporary Land Reform Initiatives In An Era Of Neo-liberamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Legalising Land Rights : Local Practices, State Responses and Tenure Security in Africa, Asia and Latin America

2009

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law, governance, and development research l e i d e n u n i v e r s i t y p r e s s legalising land rights local practices, state responses and tenure security in africa, asia and latin america edited by Janine m. ubink andré J. hoekema willem J. assies Legalising Land RightsLaw, Governance, and DevelopmentThe Leiden University Press series on Law, Governance, and Development brings together an interdisciplinary body of work about the formation and functioning of legal systems in developing countries, and about interventions to strengthen them. The series aims to engage academics, policy makers and practitioners at the national and international level, thus attempting to stimulate legal reform for good governance and development. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. The potential of legalisation of land assetsMillions of people live and work on land that they do not legally own in accordance with enforceable state law. Secure land rights are a basis for household food security and shelter, and provide a safety net in case of unemployment or retirement. The absence of state recognition for local property rights is considered to affect people's tenure security, which in turn impinges on people's social-economic security and impedes development. People who are not secure in their property rights will not invest labour and other resources in the fertility and productivity of their agricultural land, the improvement of their houses built on the land, and the infrastructure of their neighbourhood. Tenure insecurity also hinders the provision of services and infrastructure by the government. Furthermore, people are unable to acquire formal loans, as they cannot use their land or houses as collateral. The lack of stateguaranteed documents moreover inhibits the ability to make transactions of land and houses with strangers who are not familiar with local ownership structures, which will restrict the land market. Traditionally, endeavors to legalise or formalise extra-legal land tenure have focused on state-led individual titling and registration.1 This was based on the assumption that individual property rights would improve access to credit and thus increase the ability of landholders to invest in their land. Furthermore, individual titles would remove disincentives to invest through an increase of landholders' confidence that they would not be deprived of their land. This paradigm was broadly supported by legal scholars as well as by those in other disciplines as diverse as economics and land surveying.There has been some success with titling and registration. Feder et al. (1988) and Li, Rozelle, and Brandt (1998) argue on the basis of data from Thailand and China that private property increased se...

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Section: Real Estate: Urban and Peri-urban Areasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Contemporary Land Reform Initiatives In An Era Of Neo-liberamentioning

confidence: 99%

Legalising Land Rights : Local Practices, State Responses and Tenure Security in Africa, Asia and Latin America

2009

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“…Antwi and Adams (2003) found that when resources from outside sources designed for the projects of urban renewal are diverted by government agencies via privileges and high salaries for administrators, few funds accomplish their intended use. Another study done by Mbaku (1999) reported that politics and the structure of the institutions in African countries enhance rent-seeking behaviour by assigning a large number of restrictions on regular economic activities.…”

Section: The Impact Of Corruption On Economic Growth (Gdp)mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Corruption on Some Aspects of the Economy

Ertimi¹,

Saeh²

2013

IJEF

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Theoretical and empirical debate on the impact of corruption on the economy remains unclear. Many studies on corruption seem that the world is occupied by two kinds of people, "sanders" and "greasers". It depends on what the meaning of "corruption" is for them. Some scholars argue that corruption is an obstacle to economic growth, whereas others believe that corruption can (in some circumstances) endorse growth. Corruption also has a negative impact on investment, Foreign Direct Investment, and economic development as a whole. Measuring corruption is still an issue for most economists due to the difficulties of defining it, and also different forms of corruption require different objective measures. Nevertheless, recently, some measures of corruption have been widely accepted and recognised by researchers. This paper is a critical review at these positions by reviewing the theoretical literature on the impact of corruption on an economy as a whole. It is concluded that there is not enough evidence to support the "greasing the wheels" hypothesis. Instead, this document reviews different measurements of corruption to reveal that corruption is harmful for the economy.

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“…Thus, it is argued that by strengthening the position of customary land authorities and building their capacities to manage land and document transactions, customary transactions will be increasingly documented and made transparent. This will prevent corruption in both customary and bureaucratic sectors (Antwi and Adams 2003;Toulmin and Quan 2000b).…”

Section: Kojo Amanormentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Ghana the customary sector holds around 80 per cent of the land (Antwi andAdams 2003, Kasanga andKotey 2001). This sector thus provides land for the residential and other economic activities of most of Ghana's citizens.…”

Section: The Nature Of Landholding In Ghanamentioning

confidence: 99%

Contesting Land and Custom in Ghana : State, Chief and the Citizen

Ubink¹,

Amanor²

2008

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law, governance, and development research l e i d e n u n i v e r s i t y p r e s s contesting land and custom in ghana state, chief and the citizen edited by J a n i n e m . u b i n k k o J o s . a m a n o r Contesting Land and Custom in GhanaLaw, Governance, and DevelopmentThe Leiden University Press series on Law, Governance, and Development brings together an interdisciplinary body of work about the formation and functioning of legal systems in developing countries, and about interventions to strengthen them. The series aims to engage academics, policy makers and practitioners at the national and international level, thus attempting to stimulate legal reform for good governance and development. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Since the 1990s there has been a resurgence of interest in land tenure reform in Africa, which is reflected in a growing academic and policy oriented literature on the subject, and in the implementation of new land tenure reform policies and programmes and new legislation. In policy circles, recent concerns with land tenure are characterised by a distinctive approach, which focusses on building and facilitating the emergence of land markets, on promoting the rule of law and property rights, and on integrating customary and formal land tenures and the 'empowerment' of customary institutions as part of a trend towards decentralised government administration. In contrast to the dominant global approaches to land reform under modernisation during the 1960s, the major focus is now on institutional and administrative reform rather than equitable redistribution of land. During the 1960s and 1970s land administration in Africa was influenced by the paradigms of modernisation theory, which sought to replace a traditional 'backward' agricultural sector with modern farming based on mechanisation and synthetic inputs. Agricultural modernisation focussed on promoting a cadre of elite or 'progressive' farmers, whose adoption of new technologies would eventually trickle down to the peasantry. Within this modernisation framework customary land tenure was viewed as outdated. It did not provide individual farmers with secure and fungible rights in land. It was argued that this inhibited long-term investment in the productivity of land since users were not sure they would retain ownership over a long period. It also prevented the development of financial and risk markets, in which farmers would be able to use their title to land as collateral for loans and mortgages. Under the influence of modernisation theory, land tenure reform was based on promoting land titling and the creation of state cadastres through which farmers could register their land. However, land registration and ...

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Rent-seeking Behaviour and its Economic Costs in Urban Land Transactions in Accra, Ghana

Cited by 46 publications

References 22 publications

Legalising Land Rights : Local Practices, State Responses and Tenure Security in Africa, Asia and Latin America

Legalising Land Rights : Local Practices, State Responses and Tenure Security in Africa, Asia and Latin America

The Impact of Corruption on Some Aspects of the Economy

Contesting Land and Custom in Ghana : State, Chief and the Citizen

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