Administrative Allocation, Lease Markets and Inequality in Land in Rural Ethiopia: 1995-97’. WeD Working Paper 07

Abstract: This paper uses household level panel data from a rural survey of fifteen villages in the major farming systems of Ethiopia for the period 1995-97. Household level random effects regressions indicate that Peasant Associations (PAs) allocated land by mainly taking the productive capacity of households into account. This ‘allocation rule ’ departs from achieving an equitable distribution of land, which was the main thrust of the land reform programme. After two decades of distribution and redistributions, the land holding system exhibits a relatively high level of inter- and intra-regional inequality. This is captured by the high inequality indices – Gini coefficient, Theil’s entropy index and logarithms of variance- for land distribution in and between the fifteen survey villages. Key words: Ethiopia, land distribution, land lease markets, inequalit