Storms in Summer

Those words are opposing one another. But it is one of reality that we are experiencing right now...

And while browsing the Inquirer online I come across some explanations under its Talk of the Town section under the Opinion page which comes out every Sunday. It is to my glee that I found a familiar name, someone I am quite familiar with. Prof. Carmina Villariba-Tolentino, Ph. D. wrote an article worth reading for for those who are wanting to have an idea why oh why on this part of the Earth we are being visited by two storms (or was it already three) even though it is obvious (as the calendar used to show) that it is indeed Summer (where is the Sun?). She (as of this writing) is currently Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences of the Manuel S. Enverga University Foundation, my Alma Mater.

I was under her stead twice as student in Physical and Biological Sciences (NS101 and NS 102) and modestly I got some curling grades from her (the point is I passed her subject twice and not twice under her in a single subject). Not that I hate her or her subjects, she was actually one of those few professors that I like. I say modestly because I know that I would meagerly use knowledge from whatever hardcore facts I get from her subject, and I say this with utmost respect and esteemed look at her and all those Science buffs out there, excuse me of my manners. She understands my stand and opinion (though it does not entirely qualify for my absences). I heard her one time with another professor say that her subjects are one of those anathema maranatha to me. What that does mean by the way? Well checking whatever left there is of knowledge that I have I can say that it connotes something not so good, as if I disregards her subjects. Neglect, deadma, kaliwali, wapakels something to those effects and that's another story together with other subjects that found miserably misplaced in the college curriculum.

Well Class this is her article and I hope everybody gets the idea of why we are having storms in the midst of summer. Enjoy whatever there is left of your Summer and of the Sun...

Grad school paper (teacher quality)

A REVIEW OF HANUSHEK AND RIVKIN’S ARTICLE

“PAY, WORKING CONDITIONS AND TEACHER QUALITY”

Summary

By interpreting time-series data and employing regression analyses, Professors Hanushek and Rivkin’s paper analyzes how teacher’s salary, working conditions and teacher quality in Texas public schools affect the quality of instruction in the classroom. The paper made use of aspects of the teacher labor market in order to explain how the given variables affect the value of education imparted and to identify implications for teacher policies.

The study’s methodology involved a survey of variations of salaries and working conditions of United States’ public schools by regions and by community type. An inquiry on teachers’ working conditions, choices, education and turnover extend the discussion as to how these factors contribute to student achievement.

Salary differences were charted over time and revealed that variation in urban and suburban teacher salaries is far less systematic and that there is weak evidence that more highly paid teachers are more effective. As expected, school working conditions in urban districts stand apart from all others in almost all respects and, not surprisingly, urban teachers are less likely to report general satisfaction with their jobs. The data manifests that any causality between varying salary rates and job conditions with the quality of teaching are likely to be complex. Although teachers’ education and experiences are what primarily determines their salary, they do not have a strong effect on student achievement.

Believing that quality teachers could help offset the deficit of home environment or help students with good school preparations, policy implications points to lifting entry limits to the teaching profession while focusing on student performance and administrator accountability.

The paper puts forward that overall salary increases for teacher would be both expensive and ineffective. From a policy perspective, it is wise for quality of instruction to be improved, for barriers to becoming a teacher to be lowered (such as certification) and for teacher’s ability to raise student performance to be linked with compensation and career advancement.

Review Proper

Hanushek and Revkin’s analyzed issues in teachers’ pay, working condition and quality using economics and econometric methods. They reviewed time-series data or observed data collated over time composing of teacher salary which gauged teachers’ pay including their incomes from other sources; teachers working condition through administrator and parental support, commuting to work, and student demographics as proxy variables; and student test scores as a measure of teacher quality. Said variables were studied to see whether there are salary, and working condition effects when teachers move from one place to another and whether turnover affects teacher quality and student achievement. Said information was estimated by regression analysis using econometric models. After the examination of the evidences, the paper enumerates some policy implications.

Salaries and Working Conditions

Salary primarily determines teacher supply; higher salaries should attract more able teachers. The data used in the study pertaining to teacher salary reveals variations in teacher salaries by region that potentially contribute to unequal instructional quality. The study reveals that “The complexity of variations in salary and other job characteristics . . . suggest that any links . . . are likely to be complex.” It should be noted that unlike in the Philippines, there are teacher salary differences according to region and district in the United States where they are paid according to the various geographical locations they are in. In imposing varying salary scales in the US, Chambers and Fowler (1995), in a survey of more than 40,000 public school teachers, supported the same saying that such differences in ”teachers’ salaries reflect not only the cost of living in a geographic labor market, but also a school district’s preference for teachers who are better educated or more experienced.”

Public school teachers in the Philippines are among the lowest paid, they even received salaries lower than those in professions of comparable qualifications. Similarly in the US, the relative pay of teachers has slipped over the past half-century and many observers have begun to call for increasing teachers’ overall pay. Improving teacher quality, they assert, requires making salaries competitive (Hanuskek et al., 2008: 81).

Salary scales for civil servants, public school teachers included are governed by the Salary Standardization Law, which promoted a series of salary adjustments. While the increases in salary improved teacher’s welfare, they also resulted in some unintended effects. For example, by 1997, salaries of public school teachers were found to be almost 70 percent higher than the salaries of private school teachers (Catanyag, 2001: 8).

In the Philippine setting, new entrants to the public school system are given salary grade that corresponds to the entry level pay despite of possessing an advanced education, several years of teaching experience and any other qualification. A probationary period is in necessary prior to regularization and a salary raise commensurate a teacher’s qualifications.

Hanushek et al. (1999) believe that salaries may affect teacher quality in a number of ways. Although from a policy perspective, there is no analysis that suggests that student achievement would improve from simply raising the salaries of all teachers across the board. It maybe is plausible that increasing the average teacher salary would expand the pool of applicants, its impact on student achievement would depend on two factors.

First, an increase in salaries likely enlarges the pool of applicants, but, even an expansion that raises average quality does not guarantee a positive relationship between teacher quality and salaries. Evidence suggests that teacher quality depends on the ability of the school districts to identify the best teachers out of the pool of applicants without observing them in the classroom. Past evidence suggests that this is difficult and very imprecisely done (Hanushek, 2006).

Second, higher salaries might raise achievement by raising the effort of current teachers. It depends on the number of new, higher quality teachers that would be hired as a result. Increasing compensation of all teachers would provide incentives for both high and low quality teachers to enter and remain in the profession and would cut down teacher turnover – but this also lessens the possibilities to bring in newer, and better, teachers.

As to school working conditions as reported by teachers, urban districts stand apart from all others in almost all respects. Hanushek et al. found out that the relatively small average salary difference between urban and suburban schools does not imply that the typical urban school is able to attract as large a pool of teacher applicants as the typical suburban school.

As it is obvious and showing, the article has linked teachers’ (or any other profession) negative perceptions of working conditions with their exit from schools, but makes a qualification that poor working conditions is not closely tied to the quality of teachers in the classroom. An important agenda item, both for research and for policy, is to learn which working conditions are most important for teachers.

Generalizing it, as in all occupations, teachers value working conditions as well as salary. Examining differences in working conditions gives a more complete picture of differences in the average attractiveness of different types of districts.

Teacher Quality and Student Achievement

Whenever teacher quality is talked about and what makes a good description of teacher quality creates, the discussions is dominated by “widely held views on the characteristics that are needed – deep subject matter knowledge, love of children, knowledge of child psychology, pedagogical training, and the like.” The items intuitively make sense and seem reasonable, however, there is virtually no evidence that links these strongly to student achievement and performance in the classroom (Hanushek, 2006). A more measurable teacher experience and level of knowledge given their graduate education and in-service training may be attractive enough to commensurate it with teacher quality but research has found nothing to prove the same.

In the hope of a much more precise estimate of school scores and test gains, Hanushek et al. (1998: 3) surveyed about 500,000 students, 200,000 teachers and 3,000 schools and recorded large differences among schools in their impact on student achievement. These differences are centered on the differential impact of teachers, rather than the overall school organization, leadership or even financial condition.

Hanushek and associates (1998: 24) estimate suggest that the first, and to a lesser extent, the second year of experience significantly improve teacher quality, but that additional years rarely have a significant impact. Goe and Stickler (2008: 5) even expanded the period by five years. During these first few years, they say, teachers appear to gain incrementally in their contribution to student learning. After five year, however, the contribution of experience to student learning appears to level off. In economic terms, their production function when it comes to teacher experience is one of those diminishing marginal utility, a concave function in a graphical representation.

The effect associated with a teacher’s possession of an advanced degree are strikingly counterintuitive, especially given the salary incentives offered to encourage teachers to pursue graduate degrees. The study found out that there is no significant evidence that post-graduate degree education improves the quality of teaching; the point estimates for the effects of a master’s degrees are generally negative and always statistically insignificant from zero (Goe and Stickler, 2008; Hanushek, 2008). Not only do recent empirical studies not find a substantial benefit for students of teachers with advanced degrees, but the majority of such studies also indicate that teachers with master’s degrees and beyond may negatively influence their students’ achievement. Betts, Zau and Rice in 2003 (Goe and Stickler, 2008) find marginal benefits for middle school mathematics achievement when teachers hold master’s degrees though this effect is not practically significant. Rowan et al. (1997 in Goe and Stickler, 2008) speculate that graduate-level study may produce teachers who cannot simplify their advanced understanding of the subject matter, at least for students at the elementary and middle school levels.

Given this alarming find, Goe and Stickler even raised questions about the prevalence of teacher pay scales that reward these characteristic of having graduate degrees. At a minimum, they say, these results raise doubts about policies that require or strongly encourage graduate education for teachers.

Especially that the position taken by the article is that teacher experience and graduate education explain much of the overall variation in teacher compensation. Hanushek cites Ballou and Podgursky’s estimate that on average 17 percent of the teacher wage bill reflects extra payments for experience and an additional 5 percent reflects payments for a master’s degree, though the premium for a postgraduate degree varies substantially.

Quality Issues Across Countries

In the experience of South Korea (Kim, 2001: 4), the quality of teacher candidates has fallen significantly since many bright young people are now lured into other occupations and new industries. Problems in teacher remuneration, working conditions and poor conditions of teacher training institutions seem to hinder quality control in teacher training. Even if the supply-demand balance of teachers at the primary level has been controlled by the Korean government more than 8,000 vacancies could not be filled because the supply of elementary school teachers was inadequate and is anticipated to continue for several more years.

In India, Indiriyanto (2001: 7) has emphasized that teacher quality has remained to be an unfinished item of India’s educational agenda. The most prominent of which is the declining quality of teachers at the basic education level who still lack teaching skills and mastery levels. A survey conducted by the Centre for Policy Research (May, 2001 in Indiriyanto, 2001: 7) shows that more than 70% of teachers do not consider that they lack teaching skills or have low mastery levels. Most of the teachers expressed, instead, that the lack of teaching materials and other education facilities affect their teaching competencies.

Pay, Conditions and Quality: Relationships and Causalities

In an earlier study in 1999, Hanushek et al. said that the empirical evidence on the link between teacher quality and pay is decidedly mixed—raising doubts that there is a strong relationship between the two.

Two explanations have emerged in response to this evidence. On the one hand, some argue that the true relationship between teacher quality and salaries is quite strong, but methodological and data problems have impeded the identification of salary effects. Although weak, the evidence is quite strong on one point, that teacher quality is an important determinant of achievement.

Methodology Issues

Similar to the position of Hanushek et al., Goe and Stickler (2008: 3) validates the claim to further enhance methodology problem in teacher education stating that “while many studies attest that some teachers contribute more to their students’ academic growth than other teachers, research has not been very successful at identifying the specific teacher qualifications, characteristics and classroom practices that are most likely to improve student learning.”

The current US research agenda on have been fixated with the use of student achievement as a barometer of the effects of teaching. Goe and Stickler remind that while there may be important reasons to value teacher experience, above and beyond it impact on student achievement, teachers’ character, classroom management skills, stability and leadership qualities may contribute to smooth school and classroom functioning. However this may not be reflected in significantly higher student achievement because they simply are not directly measurable. They continue:

Researchers have not yet developed the tools that measures, and data sources that allow them to state with a strong degree of certainty and consistency, which aspects of teacher quality matter most for student learning. This does not mean that no relationships exists among other measures of teacher quality and student achievement; in fact, studies that show positive relationships between particular indicators of teacher quality and student achievement are numerous in literature (Goe and Stickler, 2008: 10).

A lot of important outcomes besides performance in standardized tests may be strongly and consistently related with improved student achievement such as students’ self-esteem, student attendance, teacher collaboration and collegiality and school culture.

Many of the studies that Goe analyzed find no significant relationship between teacher experience and student achievement, but they do not focus on traditional public schools. This situation suggests that the evidence supporting the relationship between teacher experience and student achievement may be more relevant to current US policy concerns than the evidence that finds little or no relationship. Hiring teachers with more than five years of experience may not result in improved student achievement, but there are other ways that teachers’s experience benefits schools. Thus, experience is one of many factors that should be taken into consideration when hiring teachers and determining assignments.

We have to remember that the study was viewed from an economic perspective and that the setting is within a competitive labor markets. Such assumes that people will sort across occupations and industries according to their skills, the salaries being offered, and working conditions because a rational consumer would want to maximize utility absent asymmetric information; And that as long as working conditions are roughly comparable, higher salaries should attract more able people as a primary microeconomic consideration. Justifiably “if the relative attractiveness of working conditions in teaching and in other occupations changes little over time, salary changes in teaching should provide a good measure of changes in average teacher quality and should therefore provide an important benchmark for considering policies related to teacher quality” (Hanuskek, et al. 2008: 72-73).

Research Agenda

Hanushek and Rivkin's paper engages educational institutions and scholars in the Philippines to either vindicate their findings or to rebuff it taking that condition in the Philippines are very different with the United States. The methodological underpinnings on the data (student achievement test scores) they have used, as Goe observes, is a variable in play that could have affected its result. The non-experimental nature of the data itself can very well be substituted by other data that would otherwise determine student achievement viz-a-viz teacher pay, working conditions and pay.

This brings about a new research agenda for the academic community especially the counterintuitive findings on obtaining a master's degree by teachers and yet having only marginal effects on their achievement.

References

Chambers, Jay and Fowler, William, Jr. J. (1995) Public School Teacher Cost Differences Across the United States: An Analysis and Methodology Report, Washington D.C.: American Institute for Research in the Behavioral Sciences.

Goe, Laura and Stickler, Leslie M. (2008) “Teacher Quality and Student Achievement: Making the Most of Recent Research” TQ Research and Policy Brief, “Washington D.C.: National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality.”

Hanushek, Eric A. (2006) The single salary schedule and other issues of teacher pay, Paper prepared for the University of Arkansas Department of Education Reform Technical Board of Advisors Conference Agenda, October 19-21, 2006, Kauffman Conference Center

Hanushek, Eric A. and Rivkin, Steven G., 2007. “Pay, working conditions and teacher quality,” The future of children, Vol. 17 (Spring 2007), New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Available: www.jstor.org/stable/4150020, [Date accessed: 9 December 2008].

Hanushek, Eric A., John F, Kain and Steven F. Rivkin (1999) “Do Higher Salaries Buy Better Teachers?” NBER Working Series Paper, Working Paper 7082, Cambridge, Massachusetts: National Bureau of Economic Research, Available: www.nber.org/papers/w7082 [Accessed: 27 December 2008].

__________________ (1998) “Teachers, Schools and Academic Achievement”, NBER Working Series Paper, Working Paper 6691, Cambridge, Massachusetts: National Bureau of Economic Research, Available: www.nber.org/papers/w6691 [Accessed: 27 December 2008].

Indiriyanto, Bambang (2001) “Management of Teachers in Basic Education in Indonesia, Issues and Innovations”, ANTRIEP Newsletter, Vol. 6, No. 1, January - June 2001, Indonesia: Asian Network of Training and Research Institutions in Educational Planning.

Kim, Hye-Sook (2001) “Management of Teachers: Efforts and Issues in Korea”, ANTRIEP Newsletter, Vol. 6, No. 1, January - June 2001, Seoul, South Korea: Asian Network of Training and Research Institutions in Educational Planning.

Wooldridge, Jeffrey (2000). Introductory econometrics: A modern approach, 2nd ed.

Grad school paper (agrarian reform)

AGRARIAN REFORM AS A PATHWAY OUT OF POVERTY:

THE PHILIPPINE EXPERIENCE

Introduction

The development of agriculture remains to be an unfinished task for developing countries in spite of global concern over recent shakeups in the world financial market and a looming downturn of the giant US economy brought about by the sub-prime mortgage woes. In the midst of these pressing concerns, people in developing and least developed countries remains to be in the quagmire of poverty and the issue of land has been seemingly left behind.

Although agricultural importance, land and agrarian reforms are issues for Third World and some developing countries, development in the agricultural sector should not be undermined or abandoned, but efficiency and sustainability in production systems should be pushed and pursued if governments are serious in taking poverty out of rural areas. A first step is to make incentives right by strengthening property rights.

In developing countries, land continues to constitute as the principal source of livelihood, security and status. In his foreword to the 2008 World Development Report, Robert Zoellick has emphasized that, “three out of every four poor people in developing countries live in rural areas, and most of them depend directly or indirectly on agriculture for their livelihoods.” About six families out of ten are still engaged in agriculture (Prosterman, et. al 1990). Agriculture remains as the key sector of economic activity in the developing countries of the Asia-Pacific Region. Relatively, agriculture’s contribution to GDP is from 8.4% in Malaysia to more than 50% in Myanmar, although its share in employment is higher (Khundkher, 2007).

Developed countries (those who have strong industrial and services sectors), have already departed from improving agriculture (though protectionism has been prevalent) and instead concentrated in developing technology and accumulation of capital. Still, a portion of the world’s economy depended on agriculture as its main export. Asia, for one, remains as a basket of agricultural goods, most of the agricultural produce of the worlds are sourced from this continent. It accounts for almost 39% of agricultural value added of world gross product (WDR, 2008: 340).

The large share of agriculture in poorer economies suggests that strong growth in agriculture is critical for fostering overall economic growth.

Agrarian Reform Policies and Development

The choice of the issue of agrarian reform is anchored on the importance of agriculture in developing the economy. Agriculture’s role is important because most people in poor and developing countries are still in agriculture and make their living from land. Perkins, Radelet and Lindauer (2006: 614) see the need to explore the problem of land prior to agricultural production. For them, the property right that matters most in the agricultural sector is the right over the use of land.

There is a need to redistribute land in order to propel agricultural productivity. Eswaran and Kotwal (2006) presuppose that “the greater the amount of land (capital) a worker has access to, the greater is his or her productivity. In developing countries, land-to-labor ratio is a crucial determinant of the productivity of the poor in agriculture.” A study on redistribution between landholding classes found that transfers between landholding classes do increase the poverty-reducing impact of land-based targeting, though the extra impact is not large (Ravallion and Sen, 2006).

As countries develop, their labor force shifts to industry and services and in the process the well-being of the people improves. Agricultural productivity is the key to poverty alleviation. The process of secular decline in poverty is inevitably associated with a movement of labor from agriculture to other sectors and how agricultural productivity growth facilitates such movement.

In many countries the highly unequal distribution of land arose originally not from market transfers but from the allocation of land to politically privileged groups (Binswanger, Deininger, and Feder 1995). Land and agrarian reforms[1] have always been very politically-intense issues. So political that the economic side of it has always been neglected, if not totally ignored. Regimes have used such a policy as a matter necessary for its survival or legitimacy[2].

From an economic point of view, it is argued that growth would be enhanced if wealth were redistributed from the rich to the poor, because the marginal productivity of capital is higher for the poor (Chenery in Dagdeviren, et. al., 2001).

The underlying thought in implementing a policy of land distribution is that it is aimed at dividing the land, deconcentrating it from the hands of the few so that the gains of the economic pie is shared, equality is achieved, poverty is reduced and the economy back on the track to progress (Hayami, et. al. 1987; MacDonald, 1999; Caymo and Celonanga, 2007). The stylized fact has put forth that poverty incidence in agriculture is high relative to other sectors; therefore development efforts should be in place in reducing poverty level in this sector.

Because land continues to constitute the principal source of livelihood, security and status, landlessness is at the root of some of the world’s most serious and persisting problems, with consequences frequently extending to severe exploitation and deprivation of minimal political rights and basic human needs. Yet, for decades[3] this problem, an issue that should be at the heart of the development process, has been neglected or ignored (Prosterman, 1987: 10).

Putzel (1990: 8) emphasizes that the rapidly growing population has put enormous pressure on land resources. He observes that the skewed pattern of landownership means that as many as 70% of those who earn their living from agriculture do not own and do not have secure access to land. In one of his papers on agrarian reform and development economics, Balisacan (2007) adds up that “high inequality in land distribution is bad for both equity and overall economic growth.”

Agrarian Reform in the Development of Economies

The most remarkable accomplishment of agrarian reform as a redistributive policy can be gleaned from the experience of the so-called East Asian Economic Miracle. The literatures on land reform have proclaimed as a success those policies that were carried out by Japan, Taiwan and South Korea; successful in the sense that those policies were instrumental in ensuring a highly egalitarian agrarian structures (Hayami and Godo, 2005: 214) and transforming the structure of the economy from an agricultural to industrial (Adriano, 1991).

The timing and setting of these economies played a crucial role in carrying out the reform. The land-to-the-tiller programs in the Asian countries were implemented immediately after the war and were accomplished in a short period of time (Hayami and Godo, 2005; Adriano, 1991: 70).

Kay (2001) also presses on the element of timing on the implementation of an agrarian reform policy as he studies Asian and Latin American countries development. He differentiates that in South Korea and Taiwan, agrarian reform came before any significant industrialization had taken place and was a key ingredient in the subsequent successful industrialization process. He continues:

“Most agrarian reforms in Latin America happened after industrialization was already firmly established and were often seen as a way to revive the flagging industrialization process dues to what has been termed the ‘exhaustion of the easy phase of import-substitution industry’. But land reform was not considered as a prerequisite for industrialization in Latin America while in Taiwan and South Korea land reform was a major factor in getting their industrialization started.”

It was not only the Philippines where land reforms were pursued; various Asian and Latin American countries have their share in implementing agrarian reform although with great and far success.

Traditional agrarian system abound most of Latin America, in which most of the people are subsistence farmers working on land of large landholders and that landlords have little incentive to divert part of their income from consumption to investment in their estates, since they tend to receive an acceptable income, “a mere redistribution of the land in Latin America will not automatically bring about an improvement in production and productivity” (Alexander, 1963: 561-2).

Agrarian reform can be seen as an effective program of redistributing wealth and, for some, in improving a country’s economic well-being. In studying the difference in the economic development of Latin American and East Asian countries, Aquino (2003: 27) concludes:

Most of East Asian countries did Agrarian Reforms and carried out comprehensive agrarian development programs, where governments have supported farmers by giving them credits and protecting them from foreign competition. Especially this has been the case in Japan, Korea and Taiwan.

When landowners have a big political clout, like in Philippines and in some Latin American countries, it is difficult to carry out agrarian reform programs (Aquino, 2003).

It should be learned that agrarian reform implemented by governments is not a stand alone policy that by itself would transform the whole economy into a developed country overnight.

In endorsing land reform as an redistributive strategy, Chenery (1979) has warned that redistribution of assets may be accompanied by significant reductions in productivity, which is attributable to the failure of providing the necessary institutional infrastructure and complementary inputs to maintain the earnings potential of the redistributed asset.

In earlier stages of developing strong economies of Taiwan and South Korea substantial land reforms were implemented, with great emphasis on education, and an overall strategy favoring labor-intensive expansion in the nonagricultural sectors, especially labor-intensive manufactured exports (Ahluwalia, et. al., 1979).

Grindle (1990: 179-80) tells that despite the extent of agrarian reform in Mexico, underproductivity, landlessness and marginality characterize most of the country’s rural people. The lesson of Mexico’s experience is that in the absence of a supportive policy environment; in the absence of significant investment in credit, infrastructure and research, extension, Green Revolution technology and human capital formation, and in the absence of a legitimate capacity or rural people to make sustained political and economic demands on the government, agrarian reform cannot resolve deep-seated problems of rural poverty, underproductivity and inequity.

Keyder and Kudat (2000), in analyzing the agrarian transformation in Eastern Europe and some parts of the former Soviet Union, have emphasized that “regime change brought with it faith in the advantages of private ownership and market system, thus redefining the task of reform as making agriculture work efficiently in a market economy.”

In contrast with the Philippine experience, “land reform in the ex-socialist bloc were generally in terms of economic efficiency rather than social goals” (Keyder and Kudat, 2000; 7). The economic reasons that were brought up was that “land reform stressed the efficiency of private ownership and market regulation, rather than concerns for equity, landlessness, social stability and rural-to-urban migration,” which was the opposite for the Philippines.

It has been almost 60 years since Bangladesh introduced land reform legislations and the “overall impact was thus insignificant in terms of both efficiency and equity.” Recent similar legislative measures were also carried out but with “limited impacts on settling the landless poor.”

The legislative measures undertaken by successive governments in Bangladesh do not appear to have brought perceptible benefits to the land poor and landless in Bangladesh. However, some polarization and awareness might have been created among the rural poor and the landless relating to their rights and prerogatives within a highly unequal and inefficient agrarian structure as indicated by unequal distribution of landownership and increasing trend of landlessness (Saha, B.K. 2000-2001 in Sato, 2004).

Even with its considerable industrial development, India’s agriculture remains as its largest sector, the government has since put agrarian reform a priority in its development agenda. The past 50 years have been characterized with significant changes in land ownership with its estimated 17.3 million acres of redistributed land (Sato, 2004). Aided by available panel data, Besley and Burgess (2000: 391) found out that land reforms do appear to have led to reductions in poverty in India. By affecting access to land, land reform may have more a lasting effect on poverty.

In neighbor Indonesia, not only “the imbalance of land authority, uncertainty of protection to land rights at the village community levels and imbalance in land use and utilization pattern due to different geographical composition and population distribution among the islands are the problems.” Sato has recorded “the rapid conversion of meager agricultural land to non-agricultural usage” as causing severe threats to sustainability of agricultural practices and aggravating the problem of landlessness among the farmers in villages in Indonesia.

Thailand’s Agrarian Land Reform Office has revised its objectives under its program (Sato, 2004: 41). It has now emphasized its resolve to a) distribute land to farmers according to ALRA; b) enable farmers to access capital resources; c) ensure self-development of the farmers in the land reform area; and d) increase the perennial plantation, food resources and income generation activities and processes. Similar to the experience of the Philippines, Thailand has met resistance from “rich farmers, and fund constraints” as stumbling blocks in proceeding with land reform.

The diverse experiences of developing countries in carrying out agrarian reform have mixed results. While it was a success for others, some have made conditions worst.

Impacts of Agrarian Reform

The available studies on agrarian reform have produced varied consequences and results. It is noteworthy to consider that there should be complementary programs that are laid side by side with agrarian reform for it to prosper and spur development of the agricultural sector, only then can it reduce poverty in rural areas.

Aside from having to redistribute land as a source of income, agrarian reform has also brought about changes in agriculture and in the economy as a whole. Land redistribution is politically feasible, its economic effects on poverty can be ambiguous (Bardhan, 1995).

A cross country observation, which includes the Philippines, by Binswanger and Deininger (1997: 1962), revealed that by implementing large public investment programs in rural areas and partial land reform programs, which addressed structural problems, can result in modest increases in agricultural output and modest reductions in rural poverty.

The same authors have also noted that redistributive land reform not only gives land to more efficient produce but also reduces credit market imperfections, which lead to improved investment decisions by the poor in the economic side. Greater wealth also increases the ability of the poor to directly participate in the political process.

Ranis (1995) has observed that as a result of the land reform and the increasingly labor-intensive mix of agricultural outputs, the distribution of rural incomes in Taiwan also improved dramatically. At the same time, farmers’ ability and willingness to take advantage of new investment opportunities outside of agriculture increased. Both trends further encouraged the growth of rural, small- and medium-scale industries and services.

Pranab (1995) has pronounced doubts that land redistribution may not always boost productivity and reduce poverty if small farmers will not be able to access production credit (particularly significant as purchased inputs become more important in modern agriculture), to information and marketing networks, and to the capacity to diffuse and insure against risk. According to him, the redistribution of land from large to small farmers may also reduce the demand for hired labor (while correcting the under use of family labor on small farms) and depress the wage rates for landless laborers, particularly if they get no land in the land reform. This would put the larger farmers as having better access to these resources.

Banerjee (1995) makes the case for land reform suggesting that “with more assets the poor are able to obtain more credit and better insurance coverage, which helps them invest more effectively.” He also believed that the children of the beneficiaries of land reform may have better health and more education, which may make them more productive.

The land given to them may even be used to start small businesses of their own by using their land as loan collateral. He emphasized that “land can be a permanent source of income for poor families.”

On a final note, Barlowe (1953: 180) summarizes that “the impact that land reform has on economic development varies considerably according to the nature of the land reform program, the manner in which it is carried out, the resources of the country and the extent to which they have already been developed, and the social, economic, political, and legal institutions of the country. In a sense, the greatest contribution that land reform can make in some countries lies in its ability to improve the institutional setting within which economic development is expected.”

However the magnitude and intensity of studies conducted in understanding Philippine agrarian reform, and even in international scene, there remains to be more room for much needed quantitative data that could clearly and definitively conclude the impact of such policy on economic development.

Agrarian Reform in the Philippines

In the Philippine context, the skewed land distribution pattern is not a product of recent history but a legacy of its long colonial experience (Adriano, 1991).

The Philippines has implemented a myriad of land and agrarian reform programs for almost a century[4] now, all aimed at improving the backbone of the economy, but still lay in the quagmire of poverty and inequality. The gap between the rich and the poor is yet to be bridged and poses an insurmountable task not only to the Philippines but to other developing nations.

The first real attempt to implement a redistributive land reform was marked by the passing of Presidential Decree No. 2 (PD-2) by President Ferdinand Marcos in 1972 under a dictatorial regime with similarly authoritarian settings in China, and very high US influence in Japan and South Korea (Aquino, 2003). According to PD-2 the whole country was declared as land reform area. Subsequently, PD No. 27 initiated the distribution of rice and corn lands to actual tillers through operations land transfer (OLD) whereby tenants were to become full owners after paying 15 equal amortizations (Khundker, 2007).

However, Marcos’s land reform attempt achieved only limited gains due to lack of support services and cumbersome process of obtaining land by the intended beneficiaries. Further, high retention limit (7 hectares) and limited coverage of the reform area (only rice and corn lands were being distributed to the actual tiller) also led to limited results. Despite limited success, some observers are inclined to term PD 27 as the springboard of the CARP introduced later.

In its continued struggle to redistribute land, the Philippine government’s newly-installed Congress in 1987, after overthrowing the 20-year Marcos dictatorship, passed the RA 6657 or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law. The law was signed by Pres. Corazon Aquino in June 10, 1988.

Aquino, herself coming from a land-rich clan in Tarlac, was criticized for not grabbing the opportunity to truly implement an agrarian reform policy but instead passed the opportunity to the landlord-controlled Congress. Though the administration of Aquino has failed (Hayami, et. al., 1987; Putzel, 1990; Gordoncillo, et. al. 2003) to live up to the promise of putting the CARP as the centerpiece of her government (Bandyopadhyay, 1985; Putzel in Silliman, 1998), the agrarian reform program has been comprehensive in comparison with all the past policies related to land distribution in the country (Khundker, 2007; Navarro, 2007). It is but more harder for the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) and other line agencies concerned to implement the reform especially in a resistant and hostile atmosphere.

Hayami, Quisumbing and Adriano (1990) observe:

“In terms of scope and coverage, Philippine land reform laws have actually surpassed most land reform laws in South and Southeast Asia. Yet, the reform efforts have faller short of the country’s needs, as indicated by the intensified insurgency problem in recent years.”

CARP and the ARC Approach

Approved in 1987 by Pres. Aquino, CARP is composed of three critical elements which enable its service-delivery aside from the redistribution of land: Land Tenure Improvement, Program Beneficiaries’ Development and Agrarian Reform Justice.

The expired CARP is being administered under an extended 10-year program within the premises of RA 8532 and was allotted P50 billion pesos for its implementation. Three phases of agrarian reform execution involves: 1) the democratization of land ownership which is focused on the acceleration of land transfer and land tenure improvement programs, 2) enhancement of farm productivity through better access to support services: basic rural infrastructure, credit, market, technology and extension services, 3) optimization of farm management to realize the full productive and income potential of awarded lands and to promote global competitiveness (Prestoza, et. al. 2003).

Table 1.1. CARP Scope and Accomplishment, as of December 2006
Land Type/Mode of Acquisition							Scope (in hectares)		Accomplishment (%)
DAR							4,428,357		86.4
Private Agricultural Lands							3,093,251		69.5
	Operation Land Transfer						616,233		91.1
	Government Financing Institutions						243,434		66.1
	Voluntary Offer to Sell						437,970		127.9
	Compulsory Acquisition						1,507,122		17.7
	Voluntary Land Transfer						288,492		208.6
Non-Private Agricultural Lands							1,335,106		125.5
	Settlements						604,116		119.2
	Landed Estates						70,173		115.0
	Government Owned Lands						660,817		132.3
DENR							3,771,411		81.0
	Public A&D Lands
	Integrated Social Forestry/						2,502,000		68.7
	Community Based Forest Mountain						1,269,411		105.2
TOTAL							8,199,768		83.9
Note: Subject to the ongoing inventory of CARP scope.
Source: DAR and DENR as cited from Balisacan, 2007

To implement CARP, Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) made a strategic decision to comprehensively focus its activities on agrarian reform committees (ARCs). Agrarian Reform Communities is a barangay or a cluster of barangays where a critical mass of farmers and farm workers were awaiting the full implementation of agrarian reform. The ARC concept was partly responsible for reinvigorating the interest of foreign donors in CARP.

The ARC development strategy emphasizes on institutional development and participation. It has been proven to be an effective approach for support service delivery and has contributed in the promotion of self-reliance and the capacity of ARC members to manage their projects (Arlanza, et. al., 2006). The ARC development strategy composed of Land Tenure Improvement, Social Infrastructure and Local Capacity Building, Sustainable, Area-based Rural Enterprises Development and Basic Social Services System Development.

In a published manual, (Basconcillo, et. al. 2005: 81-146), the DAR lists down eight elements to be considered so that a viable ARC is established: 1) land tenure improvement; 2) organizational building and strengthening; 3) economic and physical infrastructure support services; 4) farm productivity and income improvement; 5) agri-based rural industrialization; 6) basic social services; 7) balanced ecosystem development and 8) gender and development.

With the passage of a law extending CARP for another ten years, the ARC concept has evolved and developed to be known as the KARZones or the KALAHI Agrarian Reform Zones which are the convergence sites of DAR operations in collaboration with other rural development agencies. They serve as convergence venues of various government-initiated extension services and technology promotion programs for agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs).

KALAHI Agrarian Reform Zones are defined as a sub-provincial area comprising of one or more municipalities with critical mass of ARBs and farming households. The zone is composed of ARCs and adjacent AR barangays within the DA’s SAFDZ; areas covered by DSWD-CIDSS: KKB (KALAHI – Comprehensive and Integrated Development Support Services: Kapangyarihan at Kaunlaran sa Barangay) each zone should coincide with the boundaries of congressional districts. Kalahi Zones should have at least two ARCs, existing ARCs have high level of development, at least 50% of barangay are covered by CARP, at least 75% LTI accomplishment in the whole zone and with at least 30% of the farming population are ARBs.

After the term of Sec. Ernesto Garilao, the concept and principles of ARC development were viewed and evaluated. Two major findings were identified: 1) the need to expand the coverage to increase the magnitude of ARB reach, and 2) the lack of resources to address perceived ARC needs given the limitations of government resources (Basconcillo, et. al. 2005).

CARP Assessments

In more than 20 years of its implementation, the CARP has been studied and assessed in almost all its aspects that it deserves to be reviewed and presented.

CARP impact assessments were available as early as 2003 (Reyes, 2001; Gordoncillo, et. al., 2002a and 2002b; Habito, et. al., 2001; Paunlagui and Rola, 2001; Bautista and dela Cruz, 2002; Manasan and Mercado, 2001). The impact assessment delved on the micro; meso; investment, productivity and land market; social capital and civic entrepreneurship; fiscal aspect; impact on poverty; and institutional and organizational assessment. These seven studies on the impact of the agrarian reform program constitute a valuable and comprehensive analysis of how land asset reform implemented under a democracy has affected the quality of life of the ARBs, and how financial resources were utilized towards this end (Lim, 2003).

Among the highlights (Lim, 2003) of the impact assessments are its results on the tenurial relations brought about by the CARP, bottlenecks to its implementation were also identified, the persistence of share tenancy and land mortgaging are still prevalent, although there significant declines in share tenancy, leaseholding and incidence of owner non-cultivators between 1989-1999.

There was also no evidence of improved distribution of land and income in the rural areas and that poverty incidence remains to be high at 63% which is even higher than the national poverty incidence. At the bottom of the eight-volume impact assessment are policy recommendations aimed improving the administration of agrarian reform. Among those policy suggestions is for the government to resolve existing land distribution, land valuation and other conflicts and to finish agrarian reform in the targeted areas.

Habito, et. al. (2003) confirm that land acquisition and distribution has been relatively slow-paced among proprietors, with numerous instances of subdivision of threatened land among non-cultivating children (with one sibling taking care of the management of all other sibling’s parcels). This sluggishness contrasts with the dispatch with which LAD has proceeded in corporate farms outside sugarcane. The respondents in their study indicated shared tenancy decreased to 17% in 2000 and 23% in 1990. Owner-cultivators increased from 29% in 1990 to 40% in 2000, while those who were amortizing owners also increased from 12% in 1990 to 17% in 2000. Likewise, rice farmers who were already ARBs in 1990 significantly improved their labor productivity more than the non-ARBs.

In a recent study (Arlanza, 2006) commissioned on the performance in area coverage by DAR with the German Technical Cooperation:

Based on the performance in terms of area coverage, the implementation of the Program has already accounted for 82 percent of the total estimated scope. However, a more stratified assessment of this performance reveals that the rate of completion was pulled up by the extremely high performance in distributing government-owned lands (120 percent), voluntary land transfers (179 percent), voluntary offers to sell (126 percent), and the final completion of OLT (95 percent). The more important task of distributing lands under compulsory acquisition (CA) has not been prioritized. The cumulative coverage of this category has accounted for only 16 percent of the estimated scope.

Conclusions

As numerous studies on agriculture and land reform have confirmed, agrarian reform is not the only way out of poverty reduction. While agrarian reform programs were promoted to be a redistributive program in order to lower inequality, there remains be more for government to provide in terms of improving the quality of institutions, pouring more infrastructure investments in agriculture, provision for technological growth, and allowing credit access to farmers. Empirical studies have proven this point.

Barlowe (1953) emphasized that land reform offers no panacea. It can carry and give life to the seeds of economic development, but the process of development must be nurtured by many forces and factors that lie beyond the scope of land reform. In the same line, land and agrarian reforms should be viewed only as a part of a comprehensive economic and social development strategy rather than a cure-all (Adriano, 1991 and Balisacan, 2007).

Dudwick, et. al. (2007; 2) notes that although land reform may potentially contribute to pro-poor growth by the increasing farm efficiency and by distributing land widely, it is only one of many important complementary reforms and cannot be expected to stimulate sustainable pro-poor growth by itself.

Balisacan (2007) draws lessons from developing countries from a historical perspective. He emphasized, among others, on the speed and credibility by which the program was implemented, the institutions in place, the political legitimacy and acceptability of the program, its simplicity, transparency, and uniformly enforceable rules of participation. As early as 1991, Adriano has identified the major bottlenecks and loopholes of the CARP, a) limited coverage, b) issue of single versus variable retention limit and award ceiling; c) non-land transfer and priority areas: provisions favoring agribusiness corporations, d) co-existence of two modes of productive organizations (i.e. small farms and large-sized agribusiness-operated farms), e) inefficiency and inequality arguments of tenancy regulation and f) cumbersome land valuation.

Eswaran and Kotwal (2006: 120, 126) draws from the outcomes of the Green Revolution where the high-yield variety technology was introduced. The green revolution increased income inequality in relative terms. An important lesson from this is that public investment in appropriate irrigation schemes, the development of credit institutions and primary education are essential to ensuring an equitable distribution of the gains from agricultural productivity growth.

In order for agriculture to grow, it should go hand-in-hand with the expansion of markets, infrastructure and producer services so that land and labor can be shifted continuously toward their most profitable uses. Improving the productivity of agriculture is the single most important step a developing country can take to reduce poverty. For this to happen, agrarian reform should be implemented before agricultural productivity can be attained, only then can it be said that it has become a pathway out of poverty.

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[1] Land reform is the transfer of agricultural landholdings (i.e. land) to landless tenants or laborers, while agrarian reform includes land reform and essential as well as supportive measures required to make the beneficiaries of land reform economically viable and self-reliant.

[2] Agrarian reform has been seen by many and still is considered as the answer to stabilize the socio-political being of the country (Prosterman, 1987; Hayami, Quisumbing and Adriano, 1987; Thorbecke, 1988; Putzel, 1992; Kay, 2001).

[3] The problem of landlessness and its relationship to economic development, social equity and political stability faced today by leaders in the Philippines and Central America, in Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, were faced in sixth century B.C. Athens by Solon and Pisistratus, in second century B.C. Rome by the Gracchi brothers (who were assassinated as a result of their attempts at land reform), and in ancient China, where land was periodically divided on an equitable basis. Prosterman, et. al. (1990: 1).

[4] The DAR has recorded the Philippine Organic Act of 1902 which has set the ceiling for lands to be acquired (16 has. for private individual and 1,024 has. for corporation.) The law, however, was hardly implemented because it only enabled the American agricultural interests to control huge tracts of land.

The preceding article is a paper submitted to Dr. Arsenio Balisacan as DE291 (Development Economics) requirement during my graduate school stint (Master in Development Economics) in the School of Economics, University of the Philippines - Diliman, October 2008. This paper induved a worth of 1.50 in final grade...