This draft paper outlines a strategy for World Bank involvement in land policies. It focuses on property rights to land, land transactions, and socially optimal use of land.

What have we learned about land markets in South Asia about land reform, land fragmentation, sharecropping, security of tenure, farm size, land rights, transaction costs, bargaining power, policy distortions, and market imperfections (including those associated with gender)?Faruqee and Carey review the literature on land markets in South Asia to clarify what's known and to highlight unresolved issues. They report that: We have a good understanding of why sharecropping persists and why it can be superior to other standard agricultural contracts.

This paper estimates the poverty reducing impact of land access in rural Uganda. The paper firstly states that land acquired through markets or otherwise may play an important role for rural household welfare. Conversely, there are concerns that poverty reduction effect of access to land through the market may be inadequate, due to land markets that can increase land concentration among the rich and inefficient producers.

How do the spatial dynamics of the socialist city compare with those of the market city? What happens to a city when all investment decisions are made without land markets? What are the outcomes when the forces described by familiar urban models are not allowed to work?Bertaud and Renaud describe the structure of Russian cities after 70 years of Soviet development.

This case study draws on research that investigated the extensive informal land market in Maputo, Mozambique; specifically, how urban land is transacted and the mechanisms by which it is secured. The case study is based on a research study managed by Caroline Wanjiku Kihato and Lauren Royston, and undertaken by José Alberto Raimundo (Universidade Pedagógica, Maputo) and Inês Macamo Raimundo (Universidade Eduardo Modlane, Maputo). The work received technical and financial support from Urban LandMark.

This paper is a synthesis of land issues and land policy constraints in Southern Africa prepared for the World Bank Regional Workshop on Land Issues in Africa and the Middle East held in Kampala, Uganda, in May 2002. It synthesizes key points made in commissioned papers, plenary comments, and facilitated discussions from a special Southern Africa Working Group attended by conference delegates.

Mexican rural reform has questioned the role of the peasantry and private national producers in agriculture. The reform followed a neoliberal paradigm for incorporating the nation into the global village. As part of a government strategy, land reform in Mexico aims to change entrepreneurial and land tenure patterns in rural areas into an individual, private, large-scale, and capitalist productive structure, and the land market is vital in allowing the land transfers needed to change the land tenure pattern.

Contemporary and historical state interventions in South African cities and towns have distorted urban land markets affecting especially the poor. Although partly underpinned by a formidable land administration system and a strong land rights base, South African cities and towns continue to manifest the historic inequality of class and race in their spatial land use and ownership patterns.

This case study draws on research that examines

This article provides a review of the past and potential future roles of land tenure reforms and land markets in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) as responses to population growth in the process of land use intensification and livelihood transformation.

This case study draws on research that aimed to provide greater understanding of the small-scale private rental market in South Africa. The

Summarizes recent research (to 1991) on rural land markets in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region and on the relationship between this research and broader land tenure issues. The purpose of the project that prompted this paper was to carry out cross-country and longitudinal research on land tenure issues in the LAC region so as to provide an instructive and informative analysis of how tenure patterns affect economic, rural development, and environmental issues.