Caste-Based Clustering of Land Parcels in Two Villages in Uttar Pradesh

This paper examines if the land parcels in Indian villages exhibit caste-based clustering. Using digitised cadastral maps of two villages in Uttar Pradesh and a unique data set collected by conducting a survey in these two villages, we determine the caste of the owner of each
parcel. We then used spatial methods to calculate Moran's Index for caste-based clustering. In both villages, we observed a statistically significant level of clustering of land parcels based on caste groups. This finding has important implications for social learning in technology adoption, sharing of agricultural inputs, and development of fragmented markets for inputs like groundwater.