ABSTRACT
Redistribution of agricultural land has been the main element behind Vietnam’s impressive record of poverty reduction since the early 1990s. Around the world, the past 15-20 years have witnessed unprecedented transitions from planned economies and collectivized agriculture to market economies and household-based farming. In dozens of developing countries, land policies have shifted towards an individualization and privatization of agricultural lands. Such policy reforms have emphasized a well-functioning institution of property rights, including secure land rights through titling and a land market designed to provide incentives for investment and productivity gains (Alchain and Demsetz 1973; North 1990). Such ‘productivist’ policies are being implemented by international financial institutions and development agencies in countries that are moving away from collectivized agriculture (such as China and the former Soviet bloc). They are also found in countries with significant communal property regimes (such as Mexico, with its ejido system, and within more informal systems of communal land tenure in many parts of Africa and India). This productivist model differs from the distributive models typical of land reforms in the 1960s and 1970s, which reallocated land to the poor upon expropriation from large landowners.
