Land Inheritance and Market Transactions in Uganda

Studies on the role of nonmarket land transactions remain limited. This paper addresses two questions: Is land inheritance driven by underdeveloped land markets? How does land inheritance influence land disposal and acquisition? We use a switching regression model on household data from rural Uganda. We find that the initially landless or near-landless households, due to little or no land inheritance, obtain land through land markets, while those that are land rich dispose of land through land sales and bequests. The results suggest that a process of land equalization is unfolding within the sample.