[email protected] www.urbancentre.utoronto.ca fax 416 978-7162 The rapid urbanization process of developing countries in the 1960s and 1970s has intensified pressures on the use of resources at rates that demanded alternative solutions beyond local capacities. For example, the number of jobs that needed to be created to accommodate the unskilled migrants was a task that proved to b...

This thesis seeks to analyze two questions central to the economic welfare of rural households in developing countries: the trade-offs between equity and efficiency induced by hybrid forms of property rights, and the decisions made by households in the process of human capital accumulation, particularly in early childhood. The first two chapters examine the impact of periodic land reallocations...

a Zhejiang Provincial Key Lab of Subtropical Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, Institute of Soil and Water Resources and Environmental Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310029, China b Department of Land Management, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310029, China c Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, United States d College of Life and Enviro...