Determinants of biofuel-oriented land acquisitions in Sub-Saharan Africa

The recent surge of investors׳ interest for African land has triggered the debate about the drivers and effects of the so-called land grabbing. After a review of the relationship between investment in land and biofuel development in Sub Saharan Africa, we contribute to the existing literature in four dimensions. We use the updated version of Land Matrix whose potentialities are currently underexploited; we concentrate on land deals for cultivating biofuel crops which are emblematic of the food-land-energy nexus; we focus on FDI to the African continent, the most targeted region for land grabbing. Finally, we delve deeper into the influence of institutional quality by testing the role of different institutional dimensions. We find that abundance of water resources and general business conditions, security and regulatory quality facilitate the investment in land for biofuels. As for land governance, what matters is the strength and security of land tenure rights rather than the type of tenure system.