Publication

Abstract : The structure and operation of land market in a less developed economy are complex and defy the general expectations about the behaviour of market. Our shady on land market is an attempt towards examining various issues related to the functioning of land market m a theoretical perspective and empirically identifying it based on a village study in southern Onssa. To look into this issue we briefly reviewed the literature on the functionmg of land market and thoroughly examined the interim land transaction model of Basu and the ownership uncertainty model of Feder and Feeny. Basu's model raises a puzzle for the specification of supply and demand functions of land market. One interestig observation emerging out of this is that, essentially, interim transaction of land takes place more often on an ad hoc basis and only the aggregate amount features in the transaction. Such aggregate amount is determined by the quantum and quality of land rather than the quantum of land being decided by price. The conclusion arrived in ownership uncertainty model is that high uncertainty in ownership increases amount of consumption at the expense of demand both for land and capital goods. But the proposition is argued not to be valid because in many parts of the less developed economies, agriculture is labour intensive.