Transparency over Foreign Land Acquisitions

The aim of this article is to investigate the issue of government transparency in the release of information about Foreign Land Acquisitions (FLA). After computing an index of transparency for78 countries hosting FLA, we investigate the relationship between transparency over FLA and the political and institutional variables in host countries. In addition, the article explores whether the information disseminated by non-state actors, such as firms, researchers or NGOs, could promote transparency. Institutional quality, democracy and the free flow of information overall turn out to be positevly related to government transparency on FLA, albeit with regional and country-level variations. Among other factors, differences in the system of land governance contribute to explain such variations.