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This paper analyses the impact of a low-cost land certification programme on the productivity of female-headed households. The hypotheses tested in the paper emphasise on the interaction between the constraints that female-headed households face in terms of insecure land tenure, lack of productive resources and suboptimal land market participation, on the one hand, and the tenure security benefits of certification on the other. Our findings show that land certification has a positive effect on land market participation and productivity. Our analysis also suggests higher marginal effects of certification on female-headed households’ productivity, compared to the male ones. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: This paper assesses the impact of a land certification program in Ethiopia on the level of interpersonal and institutional trust among households in the Amhara region. The land certification program is designed to enhance land tenure security of farmers, by maintaining (egalitarian) status quo land distribution and equity concerns. The major contribution of the analysis lies in the exogenous nature of the program which addresses the endogeneity problems that characterize related studies, assessing the impact of policy related variables on trust. The effects of the land certification program on trust are identified both by the difference-in-difference approach and by non-parametrical analysis of average treatment effects. Overall trust is found to be enhanced by the certification program, with trust towards formal institutions being more responsive to the program than interpersonal trust. The major policy implication of the result is that trust could be invested on through policy changes regarding the economic betterment of societies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]