Property, People, and Progress along Frontiers: How Land Policy Affects Selection and Outcomes

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This project will construct and use a large historical data to study how land allocation policy affects economic outcomes for people and places. The research will study how two dominant paths to land title – homesteading and cash purchase in the US affected land use and other outcomes later on. This project will document who sought land under each alternative and where they came from. In addition, it explores how securing free land affected upward mobility by comparing descendants of successful homesteaders to those of the forty percent of homesteaders that tried but did not secure title. This research bridges the gap between theoretical notions of secure property rights and the actual process by which they are attained. Land reform processes throughout the world combined with the prospect of virgin lands attracting new settlement amid climate change and population growth make these insights critically important. The results of this research will help to guide land allocation policies and in the process improve economic performance. The results of this research will establish the U.S. as the global leader in land allocation theory and policy.This research will evaluate the process of title allocation, inclusive of how it influences who seeks what land, and its effects on economic outcomes for people and places. Central to these efforts is the advancement and implementation of data matching techniques to link volumes of handwritten land entry records, digitized land patents, and individual records from sources such as the federal decennial censuses. The project will draw on this data and econometric techniques to provide new insights into how land titling (1) affects migration by altering incentives for diverse types of individuals to claim certain types of land, (2) contributes to upward income mobility for individuals and families, and (3) affects the spatial distribution of labor and capital and subsequent pattern of regional economic growth. The project will also study how land allocation policy influences the distribution of wealth both for individual actors and subsequently the region. This project will enhance understanding of how the process of title allocation affects who attains land rights and economic development. The results of this research will help to guide land allocation policies and in the process improve economic performance. The results of this research will establish the U.S. as the global leader in land allocation theory and policy.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.