[4] Other countries with high land concentration include the United States, Venezuela, Paraguay, South Africa, and Namibia.
[8] In theory, a free market should allocate land in the most productive way, but in practice landowning groups have disproportionate power in many countries.
[14][15] High interest rates or lack of access to credit can block poorer farmers from buying land, while debt can force them to sell to larger landholders.
[19] Critics argue that concentrated land ownership gives the landowner too much power over local communities, reduces opportunities, and impedes economic growth.
Israeli economist Oded Galor writes the mediating factor for this effect was that large landholdings gave the landowning elites political power to stop reforms aimed at improving education rates and therefore human capital, which in turn facilitated the divergence.
He attributes the greater success and entrepreneurial spirit of the United States to its Homestead Acts giving land to prospective smallholders.