Working Paper
Land issues in Vietnam 2006–14

Markets, property rights, and investment

This paper uses five waves of the Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey (VARHS) to analyse land issues in Vietnam from a number of different angles. The VARHS provides panel data at plot as well as household level and I use this rich data set to present descriptive results on landlessness, land fragmentation, land market activities, and land property rights. I use plot level, fixed effects regressions to investigate the effects of land titles (Land Use Certificates) on household investment. Results show that land titling has a strong and statistically significant effect on household investment in irrigation, although this effect is only present in upland areas.