Furthermore, it has been pointed out that some CARP beneficiaries were heirs of landowners whose land would have been redistributed under the law (e.g., Borras; World Bank). While it is not clear what the proportion is of such heirs among ARBs (based on a small scale study on World Bank’s pilot project, such proportion was 10%(?) of all ARBs), to the extent that those heirs constitute a part of ARBs, their presence could be a source of spurious correlations. b. Household-level analysis: household-panel data. Potentially more informative and interesting than cross-section analyses is to look at IARDS panel data (i.e., the observations on the same households in different points in time). Reyes (2003) reports that the real per capita household income (expressed in 1994 pesos) increased by 12% among ARBs but declined by 8% among non-ARBs. Note, again, that ‘ARB’ status here is defined broadly as those who benefited from CARP as well as earlier land reform programs. Similarly, the headcount poverty ratio declined from 47.6% to 45.2% during 19902000 among ARBs but increased from 55.1% to 56.4% among non-ARBs. Among the ARB households living under the poverty line as of 1990, 38% of them became non-poor by 2000 while somewhat lower 30% of the non-ARBs living below the poverty line in 1990 became non-poor during the same period. Similarly, 30% of the non-poor ARBs as of 1990 fell into poverty by 2000 and substantially higher 39% of non-ARBs who were not poor as of 1990 became poor by 2000. This divergence between ARBs and non-ARBs seems to suggest the positive impact of CARP implementation. However, Gordoncillo et al (2003; 18) find in the same dataset that the average household size among ARBs declined from 6(6.3) to 5(5.3) during 1990-2000 while the average household size declined more slowly from 5.7 to 5.3 - and there was no change in average household size at 5 - among non-ARBs. Therefore, it appears that the different patterns of change in per capita income and poverty incidence is driven mainly by a faster rate of decline in ARB household size. There could be a reasonable explanation of why household size declined much faster among ARBs than among non-ARBs. Without such an explanation, however, it would be difficult to interpret the divergent patterns in both per capita income and poverty incidence changes between ARBs and non-ARBs. It also would be difficult to attribute it to the agrarian reform program. An additional limitation of the IARDS dataset is that CARP beneficiaries constitute a small minority of the ‘ARBs’. So it is difficult to assess the impact of CARP, which is the focus of this report. For that reason, an attempt has been made to re-examine the IARDS panel data (1990-2000) by redefining ‘ARB’ status to include only CARP beneficiaries. Table 4-1 summarizes preliminary findings. Incidentally, the change in household size does not differ dramatically between CARP beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries. Average household size declined from 6.1 to 5.5 among CARP beneficiaries and from 5.9 to 5.2 among nonbeneficiaries. The average real per capita income among those households that gained access to land through CARP after 1990 increased from Php14,625 in 1990 to Php21,903 in 2000, while that of non-beneficiaries increased from Php18,025 in 1990 to Php21,575 in 2000.
104