ACLE Seminar: Marco Fabbri (University of Bologna)
Insider Collusion as a Threat to Property Rights: Experimental Evidence
- Date
- 20 January 2026
- Time
- 13:00 -14:15
- Location
- Roeterseilandcampus - building A
- Room
- A3.01
Abstract
We provide causal evidence on how a community's formal institutions and social structure jointly affect the value of its land to outside investors. Using an experiment in Benin, we show that potential urban investors perceive a higher risk of expropriatory collusion among rural villagers—and thus invest less—when villages lack formal land records and exhibit strong social tightness. We also find that outsiders remain wary of investing in villages with a tight social structure even with formalization, indicating that both local formal institutions (property records) and informal ones (village social structure) affect the collusion risk perceived by outsiders. Our results therefore suggest that in addition to creating formal records of land ownership, well-designed property institutions should also guarantee the impartial treatment of outsiders.
Paper can be downloaded here.
Practicalities
This event will be held in person. The seminar will take place in Roeterseiland campus (REC) building A, room number A3.01.
About the speaker
Marco Fabbri is Associate Professor at the Department of Economics of the University of Bologna, that he joined in September 2022. In his research, Marco applies methodologies of Experimental Economics and Behavioral Economics to investigate a wide range of topics connected to the functioning, organization, and consequences of legal and informal institutions. His latest playground is the study of land rights reform in Africa. Marco's research has been published in prestigious international journals like, among others, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Management Science, Evolution and Human Behavior, and The Journal of Law and Economics. Marco's research projects have been financed by several national and international grants and institutions and in 2019 he was awarded the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship.
About ACLE
The Amsterdam Center for Law and Economics (ACLE) is a joint initiative of the Faculty of Economics and Business and the Faculty of Law at the University of Amsterdam. The objective of the ACLE is to promote high-quality interdisciplinary research at the intersection between law and economics.