Causes and Consequences of Perceived Land Tenure Insecurity: Survey Evidence from Burkina Faso

This paper uses unique household survey data to identify the sources of land tenure insecurity in Burkina Faso and estimate their economic impacts. We find that risk of land conflicts related to migrants and conflict related to former residents of the village returning to claim land are particularly costly, with high levels of perceived concern over both types of conflict associated with reductions in agricultural productivity of over 40%. We further estimate that the overall productivity impact of land tenure insecurity in the study area is 8.9%. Insecurity is driven by a range of factors, including wealth and social exclusion.