The political economy of land reform choices in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

In all Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) land reform has been a key part of the overall agrarian reforms and land reform procedures differ significantly among CEECs. This paper, by focusing on distributional effects and political economy implications, explains why thirteen CEEC governments chose particular reform procedures. Key factors in their choices are the history of the land ownership, including the post‐collectivization ownership status, length of Communist rule, the ethnicity of pre‐collectivization owners, and the equality of pre‐collectivization asset distribution. These factors influence the distributional consequences of the land reform, including the (potential) conflicts between efficiency, social equity, and historical justice, and thus the political economy equilibrium.