So glad to see in print @AEAjournals Macro my work with Tasso Adamopoulos on land reforms and agricultural productivity. Below my main takeaways. 1/7 https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20150222

Evaluating the aggregate productivity impact of land reforms is difficult because they take many years to be implemented and redistribution differs from the law. We combine micro farm-level data and a quantitative model to study a comprehensive land reform in the Philippines. 2/7

The reform involves a maximum ceiling on land holdings. In addition, the government intervened in the land market to redistribute excess land to landless and smallholders. 3/7

The reform has on impact a substantial negative effect on agricultural productivity, a 17 percent drop, because of distortions induced on the allocation of land and other farm choices. Productivity loss associated with full enforcement would be 50 percent larger. 4/7

It is not the distortion in land ceiling that accounts for the bulk of the productivity drop since a market redistribution of excess land attains only 1/3 of the negative effects. The market works to minimize losses. 5/7

Instead, the gov intervention in the redistribution of excess land is most damaging, more strongly reallocating land away from best uses. This insight is prevalent in development as negative outcomes often arise from implicit distortions not explicit taxes or regulations. 6/7

A key takeaway is that interventions that affect land market efficiency are critical for misallocation and productivity in the agricultural sector in poor and developing countries. 7/7