Mexico's land certification program : rollout and impact on voting behavior
Gonzalez-Navarro, Marco, Alain de Janvry & Elisabeth Sadoulet
A cornerstone of Mexicoos 1992 land reform was the land certification program, Procede. We describe the rollout of the program, which between 1992 and 2006 provided land certificates to smallholder farmers on about half of the Mexican territory. We analyze what factors were associated with earlier certificate acquisition and process completion. We find that the rollout was guided by both program efficiency and beneficiary demand considerations. We then explore if the certificates changed voting behavior. We find no evidence that awarding certificates resulted in less votes for the party in power, increased votes for the party that awarded the certificates, or moved voters to the right of the party spectrum. These results are remarkable. They show that, as opposed to fears of the destabilizing effects of land reform which are widely invoked not to do it except under extraordinary circumstances, massive changes in property rights can be achieved in an efficient, participatory, and politically neutral fashion.
Event: Annual Bank Conference on Land Policy and Administration
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