The Case for Long-Term Land Leasing: A Review of the Empirical Literature
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper is well organized and argued. It is persuasive. I only have a few questions. First, in searching for material to analyze, why did the authors choose only "land leasing" instead of "land renting" or "land letting"? Second, for the policy recommendations, who are the authors targeting? It seems from Figure 1 and Table 2 that the main data and policies are targeted at countries in the EU, the UK and possibly the USA. If the intent is a wider audience, perhaps the authors could include a sentence to explain that.
In relation to the English, the authors need to check subject/verb agreement and tenses used throughout the article. For example, on p. 2, lines 74-76 there are 3 tenses used for the same process and 1 error in subject/verb agreement.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thanks for taking your time to review our paper. Please see attachment.
Thanks,
Authors
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This is an interesting and fairly well-researched study overall. Its strengths are its attempt to conduct a reasonably comprehensive review (although please see the caveat to this below) of literature addressing the issue under scrutiny; and recognition that questions of land leasing go beyond the purely economic into sociocultural domains, particularly the owners' emotional/familial attachment to land (actually this latter point could be highlighted more).
There are however a few areas that need attention. First, while the literature accessed is fairly broad, it is skewed towards developed countries and hence much of the paper is too. Where developing countries are mentioned, this is mostly in the context of commercial farming under more formal arrangements. The much more complex situations of customary tenure, sometimes mismatched and in conflict with formal titling, or of 'hybrid' land markets where a fusion or transition between customary and formal tenure are seen, are not mentioned. These are different areas and they do not have to be covered in the paper, but the paper should therefore really note the limits to its own scope. At present these limits are more implicit (at least to my reading) than explicit.
Second, on an analytical point, more care and nuance is needed with the claims made in the latter part of section 3. on page 5 about the link between land rental and productivity. These may be true but alternative explanations are also available: that farmers who are more productive (for whatever reason: capital availability, entrepreneurial spirit, efficiency, etc.) are the ones that have the money to rent more land, hence they are over-represented in the sample, as it were. They may therefore already be better placed to make it productive rather than doing so just because they see their money going into rent, which is the only reasoning given.
Third, some points need clearer explanation. For example (among others), the 2003 Act in Scotland is referred to on pages 9 and 10 but nowhere is it stated what this Act actually is (I am assuming that it is the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 but this is not specified).
Fourth, more generally the paper suffers from ungrammatical/awkward phrasing that sometimes hampers readability or obscures meaning. The search terms on page 2 could be set out more clearly (bulleted?), for example. I would also ask the authors to look particularly at definite/indefinite articles (there several instances where these are missing); singulars versus plurals (for example, among others, all the instances where it says 'selected country' should read 'selected countries); and verb agreement with subject (for example, among others, 'Land is...' rather than 'Land are...' on page 4). The paper needs a comprehensive read-through and tidy-up of the written English, please.
I hope that these comments are helpful to the authors.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thanks for taking your time to review our paper. Please see attachment.
Thanks,
Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Authors,
I think that this work has a good background but should be developed before a possible publication.
In my opinion the structure of the paper is not correct.
It lacks a theoretical background after the introduction and, above all, there is NOT an adequate section dedicated to the methodology.
It is necessary to explain better the selection process of the paper and the methods, expanding these aspects.
Why is a paper excluded? Clarify the process, please. "We explored 1821studies retrieved from the databases and eventually considered 78 papers which include 66 journal articles, 1 thesis, 1 book,1 conference paper and 8 reports for the qualitative analysis. "
Why the sample is composed in this way?
Considering descriptive statistics figure 2 is not sufficient. You have to add something and explain better the concepts.
Findings are good.
Finally, Conclusion is too short, you have to improve with other concepts. You have to add more findings and insights, it is poor. Last but not least: check the typos.
Good Luck!
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thanks for taking your time to review our paper. Please see attachment.
Thanks,
Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
The paper is on an important and timely topic, and a review of literature on long-term leasing and policies enabling long-term leases seems an appropriate fit for Land.
However the authors seem to cast the net too broadly - it is very difficult to talk about something as complex as land tenure arrangements in a single country, let alone in a global context.
As a result of trying to generalize across many different countries, the background and the presentation of findings from the literature review come across as rather thin - the authors miss the opportunity to describe how differences in land uses, land policies, and traditions/norms around land vary across different countries and regions (and vary within countries). A single paper cannot describe all the myriad land regimes in the world - so a single paper cannot describe all the relevant considerations around long-term land leasing in the world.
Rather, I encourage the authors to more clearly identify the subpopulation they wish to talk about - is this a paper about US land leasing (many of the citations in the introduction and background), or about EU land leasing (given that many of the policies cited around long-term leasing are in Europe), or is it about long-term land leasing in low and middle income countries (where the authors argue long-term land leasing might have important benefits for productivity and incomes, but evidence seems lacking)?
If the authors choose to try to cover literature from very diverse countries in their revisions, I encourage them to organize these studies into more coherent groups of countries (e.g., US, EU, Sub Saharan Africa, South Asia, etc...). This will both allow the authors to describe trends / policies within these more similar country contexts, and also allow the authors to highlight regions of the world where studies remain scarce and little remains known about opportunities or concerns surrounding long-term leasing.
The above recommendations will require changes to the Background, Methods, Results and Discussion/Conclusions, so I am recommending major revisions.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thanks for taking your time to review our paper. Please see attachment.
Thanks,
Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Authors,
you have followed the suggestments.
In my opinion the paper can be published.
Best
DG
Author Response
Reviewer 3 comment
Dear Authors,
You have followed the suggestions.
In my opinion the paper can be published.
Best
DG
Response
We once again appreciate the reviewer for the time taken to review our paper.
Thanks,
Authors
Reviewer 4 Report
The paper is improved through revisions but some weaknesses remain.
The authors should revise the Abstract to better reflect the more narrow scope of the paper (developed countries only).
In the responses to reviewer comments and the revised text the authors say that their goal is to contribute to the literature on long-term leasing in developed countries. But in several instances their review of literature still makes reference to previous findings from low- and middle-income countries. For example:
• Line 400, how do the findings from this study in India apply to the paper’s objectives of understanding impacts of leaseholding arrangements in developed countries?
• Line 472-473 report findings from Nicaragua (see the previous question)
The authors should carefully review the cited studies to make sure any citations are relevant to EU / developed country contexts, and their interpretation of results / conclusions should reflect this more narrow focus.
If casting the net more broadly the authors should make the case for doing so.
Other minor comments:
Line 192 “Security” should not be capitalized
Line 237 the figure legend appears incomplete?
Figure 2, by using -45 degrees for the x-axis legends all dates should be visible
Line 250, what does “better” mean?
Author Response
Again, we want to appreciate the reviewer for the thorough review of our paper. Please see the attachment for our response
Thanks,
Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
