Land Ownership As a Safety Net and Land Sales : a Study Among Rural-urban Migrants in Thailand
Abstract: This paper proposes empirical insights to analyze the relationship between the safety net value of land and the determination of supply to the land sale market, using data collected among permanent rural-urban migrants in Thailand. As a general hypothesis, the safety net value provided by land ownership could hold back mi- grants’ decisions to sell land, except for the case of distress sale. More precisely, Thai permanent rural-urban migrants with a greater non-land economic stability are expected to sell their land more frequently, as they credit it with a lower safety net value. The results of the paper confirm both the idea that Thai permanent rural-urban migrants with a greater economic stability are more likely to sell, and the idea of distress sales in case of livelihood shocks.
