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Topic · Soil Science

Land Rights and Reforms

Land Rights and Reforms is a research topic within Soil Science. Science Explorer counts 16k research works in it since 1950. 10.3% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers explores the complex dynamics of land tenure, property rights, and their impact on agricultural investment, gender inequality, and rural development. It delves into issues such as customary tenure, land fragmentation, tenure security, legal pluralism, and the implications of land reform in various regions.

  • Land Tenure
  • Property Rights
  • Agricultural Investment
  • Gender Inequality
  • Rural Development
  • Customary Tenure
  • Land Fragmentation
  • Tenure Security
  • Legal Pluralism
  • Land Reform
Research works
16k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
1.7k
per year above
Top-10% rate
10.3%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+12%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
China
30% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Land Rights and Reforms

Which countries lead Land Rights and Reforms research?

By volume, China and the United States publish the most (628 and 297 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 China 628 works
  2. 2 United States 297 works
  3. 3 Indonesia 237 works
  4. 4 India 189 works
  5. 5 South Africa 147 works
  6. 6 Nigeria 143 works
  7. 7 Ethiopia 135 works
  8. 8 Germany 120 works
  9. 9 United Kingdom 116 works
  10. 10 Brazil 76 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

China: 30.1%United States: 14.2%Indonesia: 11.4%India: 9.0%6 others listed: 35.3%30%largest
China628 · 30.1%United States297 · 14.2%Indonesia237 · 11.4%India189 · 9.0%6 others listed738 · 35.3%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Land Rights and Reforms research?

By volume in 2022-now, Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy publishes the most Land Rights and Reforms research, followed by Addis Ababa University and Zhejiang University.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Institute for Peace Research and Security PolicyGermany 49 works
  2. 2 Addis Ababa UniversityEthiopia 24 works
  3. 3 Zhejiang UniversityChina 23 works
  4. 4 Renmin University of ChinaChina 21 works
  5. 5 Bahir Dar UniversityEthiopia 18 works
  6. 6 Nanjing Agricultural UniversityChina 18 works
  7. 7 Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 17 works
  8. 8 Sichuan Agricultural UniversityChina 16 works
  9. 9 University of South AfricaSouth Africa 15 works
  10. 10 University of the Free StateSouth Africa 15 works

Who are the leading researchers in Land Rights and Reforms?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Land Rights and Reforms include Andrei Shleifer, Joseph E. Stiglitz and Daron Acemoğlu.

  1. 1 Andrei Shleifer United States 234k citations
  2. 2 Joseph E. Stiglitz United States 167k citations
  3. 3 Daron Acemoğlu United States 164k citations
  4. 4 Элинор Остром United States 149k citations
  5. 5 Rattan Lal United States 126k citations
  6. 6 Douglass C. North United States 115k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Land Rights and Reforms?

The most cited paper in Land Rights and Reforms is "The Number, Size, and Distribution of Farms, Smallholder Farms, and Family Farms Worldwide" (Sarah K. Lowder, Jakob Skoet, Terri L. Raney, 2016), with 2,013 citations. Next come "History, Institutions, and Economic Performance: The Legacy of Colonial Land Tenure Systems in India" (1,287) and "A Field of One's Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia." (1,278).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 The Number, Size, and Distribution of Farms, Smallholder Farms, and Family Farms Worldwide Sarah K. Lowder, Jakob Skoet, Terri L. Raney · World Development Open access 9 Feb 2016 2,013
2 History, Institutions, and Economic Performance: The Legacy of Colonial Land Tenure Systems in India Abhijit G. Banerjee, Lakshmi Iyer · American Economic Review Open access Aug 2005 1,287
3 A Field of One's Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia. John Harriss, Bina Agarwal · The Economic Journal May 1996 1,278
4 Slowing Amazon deforestation through public policy and interventions in beef and soy supply chains Daniel Curtis Nepstad, David Gibbs McGrath, Claudia M. Stickler et al. · Science 5 Jun 2014 1,188
5 Wealth, Weather Risk and the Composition and Profitability of Agricultural Investments Mark Richard Rosenzweig, Hans P. Binswanger · The Economic Journal 1993 1,173
All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Land Rights and Reforms research done?

The largest centres of Land Rights and Reforms research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), Nanjing (China), Hamburg (Germany) and Addis Ababa (Ethiopia). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Addis Ababa.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 BeijingChina 165 works
  2. 2 NanjingChina 53 works
  3. 3 HamburgGermany 50 works
  4. 4 Addis AbabaEthiopia 47 works
  5. 5 WuhanChina 40 works
  6. 6 JakartaIndonesia 37 works
  7. 7 HangzhouChina 34 works
  8. 8 Washington D.C.United States 32 works
  9. 9 PretoriaSouth Africa 31 works
  10. 10 NairobiKenya 31 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. Addis AbabaET · 46.7 works21×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Land Rights and Reforms than the world average.

See Land Rights and Reforms on the map

Where is the best place to study Land Rights and Reforms?

Among universities, judged by research, Zhejiang University, Sichuan Agricultural University and Nanjing Agricultural University score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%20%40%mean 23.03%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Nanjing Agricultural…Sichuan Agricultural…Zhejiang UniversityAddis Ababa University
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1Zhejiang UniversityChina 80.626.5%3.1×23 +106.6%
2Sichuan Agricultural UniversityChina 80.531.0%20.4×16 +82.5%
3Nanjing Agricultural UniversityChina 78.734.1%16.3×18 +41.4%
4Addis Ababa UniversityEthiopia 77.813.8%36.7×24 +96.6%
5Renmin University of ChinaChina 74.220.7%23.0×21 +194.7%
6China Agricultural UniversityChina 65.530.9%8.0×12 -2.8%
7Bahir Dar UniversityEthiopia 64.913.2%45.2×18 +9.3%
8Huazhong Agricultural UniversityChina 63.027.8%13.7×13 +36.3%
9Peking UniversityChina 59.117.8%2.3×13 +13.6%
10Northwest A&F UniversityChina 58.214.5%11.5×12 +77.5%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Land Rights and Reforms, country by country

Is Land Rights and Reforms research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 12% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Land Rights and Reforms.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Land Rights and Reforms as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.013% in 2024.

still counting0.010%0.020%Land Rights and Reforms0.014% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Land Rights and Reforms over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Land Rights and Reforms10.9% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

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