Delinking Land Rights from Land Use: Certification and Migration in Mexico
نویسندگان
چکیده
In many developing countries property rights over rural land are maintained through continuous personal use instead of by land titles. We show that removing the link between land use and land rights through the issuance of ownership certificates can result in large-scale adjustments to labor and land allocations. Using the rollout of the Mexican land certification program from 1993 to 2006, we find that households obtaining certificates were subsequently 28 percent more likely to have a migrant member. We also show that even though land certification induced migration, it had little effect on cultivated area due to consolidation of farm units. (JEL O13, O17, P14, Q15, Q18, Q24, Q28)
منابع مشابه
Certified to migrate: Property rights and migration in rural Mexico
Improving security of tenure over agricultural land has recently been the focus of a number of large land certification programs. While the main justification for these efforts was to increase productive investments and facilitate land rental transactions, we show that if access rights were tied to actual land use in the previous regime, these programs can also lead to increased outmigration fr...
متن کاملSpecificity of Control: The Case of Mexico’s Ejido Reform
Over the course of 15 years, between 1992 and 2007, Mexico carried out a major land titling program that handed out certificates over usage rights for more than 90% of its communally held land (ejidos). Importantly, formally specifying usage rights through certification can reduce ambiguity in claims to property. This paper analyzes the long run impact of this program using data from 1991 and 2...
متن کاملDo Limitations in Land Rights Transferability Influence Low Mobility Rates in Ethiopia?
Migration is considered a pathway out of poverty for many rural households in developing countries. National policies can discourage households from exploiting external employment opportunities through the distortion of capital markets. Studies in China show that the presence of state and collectively owned land creates inefficiencies in the labor market. We examine the extent restrictions on l...
متن کاملProperty rights reform, migration, and structural transformation in Mexico
We use the rollout of a large-scale land certification program in Mexico from 1993 to 2006 to study how rural reforms establishing secure property rights determine patterns of migration, relocation of economic activity, and structural transformation. We find that certification leads higher-skilled agricultural labor to migrate, leaving behind economies less concentrated in agriculture, and with...
متن کاملAre Land Reforms Granting Complete Property Rights Politically Risky? Electoral Outcomes of Mexico's Certification Program 1
What is the impact on voting behavior of strengthening property rights over agricultural land? To answer this question, we use the 14 year nationwide rollout of Mexico’s land certification program (Procede) and match affected communities (ejidos) before and after the change in property rights with voting outcomes in corresponding electoral sections across six federal election cycles. We find th...
متن کامل