Land Rights in Transition: Preliminary experimental evidence on how changes in formal tenure affect agricultural outcomes, perceptions, and decision-making in the Philippines

Under political pressure to hasten the Philippine Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program's land acquisition and distribution process, the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) redistributed land in bundles by awarding groups of farmers collective titles. While issued under a strong political rationale, these awarded lands are handicapped in terms of their economic development: they cannot be used as collateral to access credit, legally sold or leased to other farmers, and largely do not provide the tenure security that comes with individual titling. Given the current rate of parcelization, it will take the DAR about 20 years to subdivide the remaining lands under collective title. With such a large outstanding balance, the DAR would like to know where parcelization has the largest impact on agricultural investment and welfare so it can re-focus its strategy to prioritize these lands.