Economic Analysis of Sub-saharan Africa Real Estate Policies

by Hammond, Felix; Antwi, Yaw Adarkwah

• ISBN13: 9780230232310
• ISBN10: 0230232310
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-05-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

This book explores why existing real estate arrangements in Africa have not worked well and how they can be organized to provide efficient outcomes.

Author Biography

FELIX N. HAMMOND is a senior lecturer in Real Estate at the University of Wolverhampton, UK. YAW ADARKWAH ANTWI is a consultant in Real Estate Markets and Land Policy at LandPro Consultancy in Accra, Ghana.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	p. x
List of Tables	p. xi
Preface	p. xiii
Background	p. 1
Introduction	p. 1
Poverty, a worldwide problem	p. 3
Sub-Saharan Africa's struggle with poverty	p. 5
The place of public policy	p. 9
Analysing real estate policies	p. 12
Summary	p. 15
Primacy of Real Estate	p. 16
Introduction	p. 16
Real estate and poverty alleviation	p. 17
Causes of poverty	p. 17
Real estate as a factor of production	p. 21
Land and agricultural production	p. 24
Real estate and shelter poverty	p. 28
Real estate and economic development	p. 29
Measuring economic development	p. 29
Basic determinants of economic development	p. 32
The availability of real estate	p. 33
Utilisation of real estate resources	p. 33
Institutional rules and arrangements: Land tenure	p. 39
The major land tenure theoretical positions	p. 42
Summary	p. 50
Rationale for Real Estate Policy	p. 51
Introduction	p. 51
The concept of human action	p. 52
The real estate price system	p. 54
Public policy in real estate markets	p. 59
Shortcomings of government interventions	p. 62
Market improvement	p. 66
The Coase theorem	p. 67
Framework for real estate policy evaluation	p. 69
Summary	p. 72
The Political Economy of Sub-Saharan African Real Estate Policies	p. 73
Introduction	p. 73
Taxonomy of sub-Saharan Africa real estate policies	p. 73
The taxonomy	p. 75
The real estate policy process	p. 77
Pluralism, public choice and transaction costs	p. 78
Pluralism in action	p. 80
The colonial regime	p. 80
The single party postcolonial regimes	p. 85
The Ghana case	p. 87
Military regimes	p. 92
Emergent democratic regimes	p. 94
The social cost implications	p. 97
Summary	p. 100
Real Estate Policy Reforms in Sub-Saharan Africa	p. 101
Introduction	p. 101
First generation real estate policies	p. 101
Second generation land policies	p. 103
Third generation land policies	p. 105
The new path - pro-poor land policy regime	p. 108
Summary	p. 110
Economics of Real Estate Information	p. 111
Introduction	p. 111
The strategy of inquiry	p. 115
The indigenous tenure system and information gaps	p. 116
Sources and nature of information gaps	p. 117
Information gaps and tenure security	p. 120
The social costs	p. 123
Rectifying the gaps	p. 130
Summary	p. 132
Performance of Real Estate Bureaucracy	p. 133
Introduction	p. 133
Economics of public bureaucracy	p. 135
The Ghana land sector public bureaucracy	p. 138
Research method	p. 139
Factor analysis	p. 140
The data	p. 141
Results of the factor analysis	p. 143
The budget growth rate pattern	p. 146
The share of the bureaucracies' budgets of national income	p. 148
The size of the personnel roster	p. 148
Identified sources of extraneous costs	p. 150
The acute imbalances in the workforce structure	p. 150
The extraneous costs of input control budgeting	p. 152
Summary	p. 153
Benefits of Real Estate Policies	p. 154
Introduction	p. 154
The place of land policies	p. 156
Nature of land policies in Ghana	p. 160
Research method	p. 162
Data collection and instrument	p. 164
Analysis	p. 165
Results	p. 167
Benefits of enforcement institutions	p. 170
Benefits of the land policies	p. 170
Discussion and implications	p. 171
Summary	p. 173
Cost of Real Estate Policies	p. 175
Introduction	p. 175
Cost	p. 175
Private costs	p. 178
Private direct/transaction costs	p. 178
Private indirect/opportunity costs	p. 178
The social costs	p. 178
Direct administrative cost	p. 179
Indirect administrative cost	p. 179
Price distortions	p. 180
Rent seeking and rent dissipation	p. 182
Measuring the social costs of land policy	p. 182
The model	p. 184
The research method	p. 187
Data collection	p. 187
Profile of respondents	p. 188
The prime variables	p. 188
The results	p. 189
The indirect private costs (¿1)	p. 189
The contract costs	p. 190
The extra official costs	p. 191
The travel costs	p. 191
The travel time	p. 191
The travel time costs	p. 193
Frequency of travel	p. 194
Transport fare and direct travel costs	p. 195
The costs of lag-time	p. 195
The costs of waiting time	p. 195
The costs of delays	p. 196
The costs of Act 481, 1994	p. 197
The direct administrative (vg)	p. 198
Deadweight costs (Harberger costs)	p. 202
The social marginal costs of land policies in Ghana	p. 205
Discussions	p. 207
The impacts	p. 210
Regulative policies	p. 211
Redistributive policies	p. 211
Distributive policies	p. 212
Summary	p. 213
The Way Forward	p. 214
Introduction	p. 214
The fundamental conclusions	p. 216
Sources of the policies	p. 216
The quantitative measuring framework	p. 218
The quantitative dimensions of social costs of real estate policies	p. 218
The benefits dimensions of the policies	p. 220
Recommendations for practice	p. 220
The overarching policy proposition	p. 221
The regulative policy reform proposal	p. 221
The distributive policy reform proposal	p. 221
The redistributive policy reform proposal	p. 222
The reform of policy delivery bureaucracies	p. 222
The costs of delays	p. 224
Recommendations for further study	p. 224
Summary	p. 224
Notes	p. 225
References	p. 230
Author Index	p. 250
Subject Index	p. 255
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