Urban Land Markets, Institutional Arrangements, and Housing Outcomes in Nigerian Cities: A Comparative Institutional Analysis

The institutional arrangements governing urban land markets profoundly shape housing outcomes, yet comparative institutional analysis of Nigerian urban land market systems remains theoretically underdeveloped relative to the magnitude of the housing challenge. This doctoral study develops and applies a comparative institutional analysis framework to examine how different land market institutional arrangements produce divergent housing outcomes across four Nigerian cities: Lagos, Abuja, Enugu, and Kano. Drawing on Ostrom's institutional analysis and development framework and North's new institutional economics, the study constructs detailed institutional profiles for each city's land market, documenting formal rules, informal norms, enforcement characteristics, and transaction cost structures. A seven-year longitudinal data collection program gathered primary data through 120 in-depth interviews, 1,200 household surveys, and analysis of 4,500 property transaction records. The comparative analysis employs a most-similar/most-different case strategy to isolate institutional factors associated with housing affordability, supply adequacy, and tenure security outcomes. Original findings are expected to demonstrate that informally governed land market segments achieve higher housing access rates for low-income populations than formally governed segments in Enugu and Kano, while Lagos exhibits emergent hybrid institutional forms that partially internalize formal and informal regulatory principles. The study generates theory regarding the conditions under which institutional pluralism in land markets can produce positive housing outcomes. Contributions include a Nigerian Urban Land Market Institutional Typology with direct policy implications. Keywords: Urban land markets, Institutional analysis, Housing outcomes, Comparative study, Nigeria.