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Certification of banana plantations is widely used as a device for protecting and improving socioeconomic conditions of wageworkers, including their incomes, working conditions and-increasingly-voice [related to labour relations and workplace representation]. However, to date, evidence about the effectiveness of certification in these domains is scarce. We collected detailed field data on (1) economic benefits for improving household income, (2) social benefits for labour practices, and (3) the voice of wageworkers focusing on identity and identification issues amongst wageworkers at Fairtrade certified banana plantations and comparable, non-certified plantations in the Dominican Republic. We used different types of regression models to identify significant relationships. Econometrical analysis of survey results complemented by field observations and outcomes from in-depth stakeholder interviews indicate that the impact of Fairtrade certification on wageworkers' economic benefits is rather limited. However, the impact on the voice of wageworkers (job satisfaction, sense of ownership, trust), is more evident. On Fairtrade certified plantations workers are more satisfied with the course of life and better represented. Thus while the additional value of Fairtrade certification on primary wages seems limited, Fairtrade has relevant positive effects on the labour force, particularly by delivering in-kind benefits, offering a sense of job-security, improving voice and enabling private savings. Benefits of (Fairtrade) certification, but also other interventions with a similar purpose, might therefore not be discerned in terms of economic benefits such as wages or basic labour conditions that are under direct control of (inter)national law, but they should be identified in terms of social benefits and improved norms of conduct for wageworker engagement.

Land titling programmes have been widely promoted as a necessary condition for enhancing farmer's incentives to invest in their land. The justification for public intervention of this type is increasingly questioned on the grounds of its limitation to replace or improve the effect of informal or customary rights already in place. If the main aim of the programme is to formalize previous land rights and its procedure is based on the recognition of informal documents and reliance on community rules, it could in fact contribute to increased farmer's tenure security and therefore boost land investments.We explored this relationship for a sample of Peruvian farmers who were part of a state-led land titling programme that shared the aforementioned characteristics. Using retrospective information on the type of informal documents that parcels had before the start of the programme we were able to categorize the parcels at two levels of initial tenure security. The effect of titling on investments was then analysed for these two groups, using a difference-in-differences estimation technique. The results show that there is a positive effect of titling on the probability of making investments as well as on the value of investments for both groups of parcels, but also prove that the impact of titling is greater for parcels with previously low levels of tenure security. This effect could be almost entirely attributed to changes in farmer's willingness to invest and not to better access to credit.

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