Land reform and institutional change : legalization, formalization and securization of land transactions in Mexico

Section 1 : Introduction.............................................................................................................1 Section 2 : The land security issue in the development literature ............................................3 1. Land policies and their underlying theoretical basis .........................................................3 2. The case for security as an empirical, endogenous variable............................................4 3. Security and land markets ................................................................................................4 Section 3 : Context the land issue in Mexico .........................................................................5 Section 4 : Data collection and analysis...................................................................................7 Section 5 : empirical results and discussion.............................................................................9 1. Titles and the security of tenure........................................................................................9 2. Land markets before the 1992 reform : institutional foundations of illegal practices ......11 Activity of land markets ...................................................................................................11 Legal rules, local rules, and social norms .......................................................................12 Perception of risk ............................................................................................................13 Formalization of illegal transactions ................................................................................13 Enforcement, conflict and land market security ..............................................................14 3. Land markets after 1992 : legalization, formalization, securization? ..............................15 Policy content and policy delivery : the role of information, perceptions, and meanings 16 Activity of land markets ...................................................................................................19 Formalization of transactions ..........................................................................................19 Conflict, enforcement and land market security ..............................................................21 Section 6. Conclusions and policy implications......................................................................23 References .............................................................................................................................26