Land degradation, agricultural productivity and common property: evidence from Côte d'Ivoire Thanks to Ramón López, Rimjhim Aggarwal, Bruce Gardner, Howard Leathers, Mancur Olson, Jean-Philippe Platteau, John Pender, the participants in the 6th IASCP conference, 'Voices from the Commons' at the University of California, Berkeley, seminar participants at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India, and the two anonymous referees. All remaining errors are mine. The data for this study were obtained under a World Bank Research Project (RPO# 675-33).

This study provides evidence on the effectiveness of community controls in regulating the use of common agricultural land in Côte d'Ivoire and tests for factors such as group size, ethnic and income heterogeneity of the group, income and resource stock levels, in explaining the variation in effectiveness across communities. The results indicate significant deterioration in community controls. These results point towards the need for a comprehensive policy framework towards agriculture in general and land tenure in particular. The study also finds that smaller and ethnically homogenous communities are better able to coordinate their actions, thereby internalizing a higher proportion of the value of land as a factor of agricultural production than their large ethnically heterogenous counterparts. No evidence is, however, found in favour of income heterogeneity hindering or facilitating collective action.