This is an archived version of the PW Sources newsletter from Saturday, July 8. Sign up to receive PW Sources directly to your inbox here.

LAND REFORM

Many post-colonial governments have attempted to pass land reforms to abolish feudal relations and promote equitable development. This process remains incomplete.

In a 1996 article, REKHA BANDYOPADHYAY offers a global survey of land reform. 

From the text:

“Many countries experienced land reform along with revolution or just after revolution. Among them are China, Vietnam, Mexico, Bolivia, and Nicaragua. The non-revolutionary reform experiences originated either through the initiating efforts of allied occupational forces or through the re-organisational efforts arising out of decolonisation. Decolonisation induced reforms again varied according to the nature of involvement in and withdrawal of colonial power from the agrarian sector. In the cases of Algeria, Mozambiqie, and Angola, colonial rule introduced a settler population which was directly involved in the agrarian sector and introduced capitalism as the dominant mode of production co-existing with the indigenous traditional sector. In all these cases liberation came at the end of a bloody war after which the settlers felt sufficiently insecure in the face of a mobilised peasantry to abandon their farms quickly and seek refuge in the mother country, thus leaving a visible entrepreneurial vacuum in the agricultural sector. Similar direct involvement of settler authority had different types of implications on Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Tunisia because of gradual or ineffective withdrawal of colonial power. The countries where settler population had no direct involvement in the land but exercised their control over land through intermediaries can be grouped under a different category. In these countries the landlord group was allied to the colonial power and gave rise to an inefficient landownership pattern based on exploitation and maximal expropriation. All South Asian countries fall under this category: India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Philippines, and Bangladesh.” 

+  “Achieving an equitable balance in racial and national land ownership has been a key political objective of Zimbabwe’s land reform program.” By Sam Moyo. Link. And Antonio J. Ledesma compares land policies between the Government of South Vietnam and the Viet National Liberation Front. Link. 

+  “All land reforms in Latin America during the twentieth century, excepting the Cuban, have had the purpose of fomenting the development of capitalism in agriculture.” By Alain De Janvry and Lynn Ground. Link. And an article on  Santiago López Rodríguez, Xara Lucia Chamorro, Manuel Alejandro Noriega, and Jahnisi Arley Cáceres on militancy and land reform in Colombia. Link. 

+  “J&K’s special status meant that unlike other states, the region’s land policies were not restricted by Article 19 of the Indian Constitution, which prohibited land redistribution without paid compensation to landowners.” A new PW essay by Sehar Iqbal examines land reforms and legal autonomy in Jammu & Kashmir. Link. 

NEW RESEARCHERS

Child penalty

MARTINA UCCIOLOI is a Ph.D candidate in economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A recent paper co-written with Ludovica Ciasullo studies how working arrangements affect maternal labor supply. 

From the abstract: 

“Which working arrangements do mothers prefer, and how do these working arrangements affect the child penalty they experience? The Australian 2009 Fair Work Act explicitly entitled parents of young children to request a (reasonable) change in working arrangements. Leveraging variation in the timing of the law, timing of childbirth, and the bite of the law across different occupations and industries, we establish two main results. First, if allowed to request a change in working arrangements, new mothers ask for regularity in their schedule. Second, with regular schedules, working mothers’ child penalty declined from a 47 percent drop in hours worked to a 40 percent drop. For the most exposed mothers, the Fair Work Act led to both a doubling in schedule regularity, and a 30 percent decrease in the child penalty in hours of work.”

+ + +

+  “The possibility of a new solar crash, echoing that of 2010, haunts Spain’s solar sector.” Ahead of July’s parliamentary elections, a new PW essay by Paolo Gerbaudo examines the politics of Spain’s solar power generation. Link.

+  “Jammu & Kashmir’s distinct distributional history is intimately linked to its regional autonomy.” Also new on PW, Sehar Iqbal challenges the Indian government’s narrative of Kashmir. Link.

+  JFI’s Laura Beamer in the New York Times, Boston Globe, and Al Jazeera on the US Supreme Court student loan decision. Link, link, and link. And link to JFI’s report on the repayment pause. 

+  “A public bank could assist with construction loans, convert multifamily housing into affordable housing stock, provide mortgage assistance, and create accessory dwelling units.” JFI and Berggruen’s joint series on public banking in Los Angeles featured in the LA Times. Link to the article, link to the series.

+  Rory Pilossof on gender relations and labor supply in Zimbabwe. Link. 

+  “The US gun crisis is Haiti’s gun crisis.” By Jan Critchfield and Danny Shaw. Link. 

+  “We provide evidence that when employees have more face-to-face interactions with their managers, they are promoted at a higher rate.” By Zoë Cullen and Ricardo Perez-Truglia. Link.

+  Rebecca Prentice and Mahmudul H. Sumon on labor precarity in Bangladesh. Link. 

+  “Mass incarceration significantly drives poverty and hinders social progress by making it more difficult for formerly incarcerated individuals to find employment, vote, or access public benefits.” By Brianna Borrelli. Link. 

+  Isaac Abotebuno Akolgo on fintech and financial inclusion in Africa. Link.

+  “Senegalese habitants who profited from the enslavement of people were, in many cases, able to use the compensation process to access new ways of making returns on capital after abolition. Compensated emancipation released capital for reinvestment in real estate and other capital investments, as well as in new commodity frontiers, while the continuation of enslaved labor beyond the colony’s borders allowed both urban and rural elites a flexibility regarding the mechanisms of exchange, debt, labor, and credit that facilitated the groundnut boom.” By Bronwen Everill and Khadidiatou Diedhiou. Link. 

Each week we highlight research from a graduate student, postdoc, or early-career professor. Send us recommendations: editorial@jainfamilyinstitute.org