The legacy of partible inheritance on farmland fragmentation: Evidence from Austria

Abstract

Partible inheritance is considered an important driver in the fragmentation of farmland use and ownership, but this lacks empirical evidence. We combine parcel-level data on land use and land ownership with historical information on inheritance traditions from Eastern Austria where partible and impartible inheritance coexisted. We use multiple regression analysis with coarsened exact matching to show that farmland is more fragmented in partible inheritance regions. Despite partially consolidating their farmland via the rental market, farms in these areas own less land, farm smaller and more scattered parcels, and have more landowners than farms in regions with an impartible inheritance tradition. Policy makers should thus ensure functioning land markets and facilitate land consolidation measures to counteract the legacies of historical fragmentation processes.