Two essays on the land tenure institutions of Bulgaria: Evolution, land fragmentation and land productivity.

摘要

This dissertation consists of two essays that address two distinct topics concerning the land tenure institutions of Bulgaria. The first essay studies the evolution of land tenure institutions, focusing on the period 1839--1944 during which the country experienced two distinct land tenure regimes---that of the late Ottoman Empire (1839--1878) and that of the post-liberation period (1878--1944). The major factors which determined the shape of these institutions are identified and analyzed by critically evaluating two theories of institutional change---the efficiency theory developed by Demsetz (1967) and the social conflict theory developed by Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson (2005). Consistent with the latter theory, the essay argues that political institutions and the distribution of resources determined the prevailing political balance which in turn determined the structure of land tenure institutions during 1839--1878. The process of institutional change was endogenous to the Ottoman Empire but exogenous to Bulgaria as the institutions of the latter were embedded into those of the former. During the 1878--1944 period, however, the initial source of prevailing political power was an external factor---the Russian occupation forces. The essay suggests that the social conflict theory be expanded to include the embeddedness factor and the role of external factors in the process of institutional change.;The second essay studies the extent and underlying causes of land fragmentation in Bulgaria and its impact on land productivity. Multiple regression analysis is used to examine the relationship between land fragmentation and land productivity. The source of data for the study is the 2003 Bulgarian Multi-topic Household Survey. The findings of this essay suggest that: (1) in contrast to previous research, there is not enough evidence to conclude that land fragmentation in Bulgaria is driven by supply-side factors such as partible inheritance or population growth; (2) the level of current land fragmentation is low to moderate; and (3) this level of fragmentation is not likely to adversely affect land productivity. Other conditions being equal, therefore, land consolidation may not lead to any significant improvement in productivity in Bulgaria.