Entitled to work: Urban property rights and labor supply in Peru

Between 1996 and 2003, the Peruvian government issued property titles to over 1.2 million urban households, the largest titling program targeted at urban squatters in the developing world. This paper examines the labor market effects of increases in tenure security resulting from the program. To isolate the causal role of ownership rights, I make use of differences across regions induced by the timing of the program and differences across target populations in level of preprogram ownership rights. My estimates suggest that titling results in a substantial increase in labor hours, a shift in labor supply away from work at home to work in the outside market, and substitution of adult for child labor. © 2007 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Duke Scholars

Author Erica Field Economics