This paper is motivated by the emphasis on secure
property rights as a determinant of economic
development in recent literature. The authors use
village and household level information from about
800 villages throughout China to explore whether
legal reform increased protection of land rights against
unauthorized reallocation or expropriation with belowaverage
compensation by the state. The analysis provides
nation-wide evidence on a sensitive topic. The authors
This paper—a product of the Sustainable Rural and Urban Development Team, Development Research Group—is part
of a larger effort in the group to assess the impact of land policies. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the
Web at http://econ.worldbank.org. The authors may be contacted at kdeininger@worldbank.org or jins@anr.msu.edu.
find positive impacts, equivalent to increasing land values
by 30 percent, of reform even in the short term. Reform
originated in villages where democratic election of leaders
ensured a minimum level of accountability, pointing
toward complementarity between good governance and
legal reform. The paper explores the implications for
situations where individuals and groups hold overlapping
rights to land.