We address a debate over the effects of private versus customary property rights on external investment. Despite political economists’ claims that external investors favor private property rights, other experts argue that customary systems enable large-scale “land grabs.” We organize these competing claims, highlighting trade-offs due to differences in legibility versus the ability to displace existing landholders under both systems. We study a natural experiment in Liberia, where law codifies parallel private and customary property rights systems. We use this institutional boundary and difference-in-differences methods to isolate differential changes in external investment under the different property rights systems following the global food crisis of 2007–08. We find a larger increase in land clearing where private property rights prevailed, with such clearing related to more concession activity. Qualitative study of a palm oil concession reveals challenges external investors confront when navigating customary systems.

中文翻译：

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易读性和外部投资：利比里亚的机构自然实验

我们讨论了私人产权与习惯产权对外部投资的影响的辩论。尽管政治经济学家声称外部投资者偏爱私有产权，但其他专家认为，习惯制度可以实现大规模的“土地掠夺”。我们组织了这些相互竞争的主张，强调了由于易读性差异与在两种系统下取代现有土地所有者的能力之间的权衡。我们研究了利比里亚的一项自然实验，那里的法律规定了平行的私有和习惯产权制度。我们使用这种制度边界和差异中的差异方法来隔离 2007-08 年全球粮食危机后不同产权制度下外部投资的差异变化。我们发现，在私有财产权盛行的地方，土地清理的增加幅度更大，这种清算与更多的特许经营活动有关。对棕榈油特许权的定性研究揭示了外部投资者在使用习惯系统时面临的挑战。