Paddy Land Ownership, Returns on Financial Assets,Capital Accumulation and Economic Development

Abstract

The archaic land tenurial patterns in developing countries have been in part responsible for the perpetuation of low agricultural productivity, a distorted land market, and locked in capital. Elimination of the tenurial system by acquiring all share cropping land by the state, by compensating the owner with financial assets (perpetual annuity), whose annuity is equivalent to the average rent of the land, calculated as half way between the highest and the lowest over a predetermined period, and disposing the land to the tillers at a price, inclusive of interest on the value of land, would remove most of the constraints on economic development and enucleate locked in capital. Interest earned on capital repayments of tiller could cover landlord’s annuity and the accumulated value of land could generate much needed capital for economic development.