Housing Prices and Maturing Real Estate Markets: Evidence from Uganda

Abstract

Uganda, a less developed but rapidly growing East African nation, continues to correct the economic mismanagement of past governments. One important legacy of this mismanagement is the Land Decree of 1975, issued by then President Idi Amin Dada. This decree nationalized all land and made illegal all private real estate market transactions. This paper uses a rich, but little known, dataset to show that real estate markets appear to have continued operating reasonably efficiently in spite of the 1975 Decree. The Land Act of 1998 repealed the 1975 Decree. Our results suggest the recent Act has a high likelihood of success because its primary goal is to codify guarantees of security, transparency, and enforceable property rights in private real estate markets that appear to already exist.