Sweet equality: Sugar, property rights, and land distribution in colonial Java
利用20世纪初爪哇的区级数据，研究发现甘蔗种植促进了共有土地制度的扩张，进而使土地分配更加平等，揭示了地方产权制度在缓解出口生产对经济社会影响中的关键作用。
This article exploits a unique district-level dataset to investigate the relationship between sugar cultivation, property rights systems and land distribution in colonial Java around the turn of the twentieth century. We demonstrate a negative and statistically significant relationship between sugar cultivation and the landholder Gini. An IV strategy, employing a newly computed index of sugar suitability as instrument, suggests that this effect is causal. It is argued that sugar production in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries stimulated the expansion and persistence of communal landholding. This communal landholding consequently led to more equally distributed plots among landholders in the early twentieth century. We emphasize the importance of local property rights institutions in mitigating the effects of export production on socioeconomic outcomes.