Securing Property Rights as a Tool for Equitable Peacebuilding: Evidence from Colombia’s Land Tenure Formalization and Restitution Efforts

Abstract

How effective is securing property rights as a tool for conflict termination? While scholars have shown that land tenure insecurity is a determinant of conflict onset and reoccurrence, we know little about how land security can affect peacebuilding (Boone, 2014; Autosserre, 2010). We answer this question by examining the effects of Colombia´s land tenure formalization and restitution effort. Using a regression discontinuity design that exploits a cutoff in the existing levels of violence that determine municipal eligibility, we explore the effect of policies aimed at securing the rights of displaced migrants and at-risk informal rural landowners on conflict and development outcomes at the household level. Our research also investigates whether the staggered implementation of policies that encouraged and mentored women seeking to formalize their land ownership led to gendered changes in violence, access to financial institutions, labor force composition, and health and mortality outcomes.