Bundle of Property Rights and Land Tenure Security Evidence from Anuradhapura District

Abstract

Formalizing property rights through the issuance of state-guaranteed titles is widely debated in recent literature. Guaranteed property rights to land increase the security in tenure and provide incentives to land investments. This study focusses on to delineate the property rights in paddy land plots and to identify the association with tenure security. The perceptions on both use rights and transfer rights gathered through a survey from 936 farmers on 1230 paddy land plots from three selected irrigated settlements in Anuradhapura district of Sri Lanka were used as data for the analysis. The results reveal that the majority of the farmers perceived that they are enjoying only the use of rights while a few perceived on sell and mortgage rights. There is a significant difference in the perceptions between valid legal document holders and non-holders suggesting document holders are positively perceived on full property rights. Measures to improve property rights in the irrigated settlement are required to improve the positive attitudes of farmers by encouraging land investment to improve productivity.