Land-locked countries are at a disadvantage:
http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21650574-why-its-better-have-coastline-interiors
Land and Economic Development
A fascinating piece from The Economist on
the challenges of land acquisition:
The article notes -
“Economists and legal scholars have justified forced
purchases when the transaction costs of stitching together many small
properties are too high for a deal to be reached by consensus. More precisely,
it can be used to overcome the power of so-called holdouts. A theoretical model
set out in a paper published in 2011 by Thomas Miceli and Kathleen Segerson of
the University of Connecticut shows that when a buyer has to negotiate in
sequence with sellers of contiguous plots of land, the price at each successive
sale will rise. Landholders know the project cannot proceed unless the buyer
acquires all the plots he needs. The more he acquires, the greater the cost of
abandoning the project. The ransom those yet to sell can demand increases
accordingly.”