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Land titles and violent conflict in rural Mexico

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  • Castañeda Dower, Paul
  • Pfutze, Tobias

Abstract

Better enforcement of property rights reduces the incentives to engage in violent competition over resources. At the same time, greater tenure security may disrupt a key mechanism for political and social control, the discretionary allocation of land by local authorities, also potentially affecting the level of violence. We investigate the effect of a land certification program, which produced exogenous variation in tenure security, on violent deaths in Mexico's rural municipalities from 1993 to 2007. We find that land titles significantly decrease violent deaths on average. However, this reduction is present only in municipalities where the dominant political party has never lost an election. If all ejidos had been certified instantaneously in 1993, our estimates give a 12.8% reduction in homicides, pointing to a large social cost of having land as a political tool.

Suggested Citation

  • Castañeda Dower, Paul & Pfutze, Tobias, 2020. "Land titles and violent conflict in rural Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:deveco:v:144:y:2020:i:c:s0304387818314974
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2019.102431
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    Cited by:

    1. Benito Arruñada & Marco Fabbri & Michael Faure, 2022. "Land Titling and Litigation," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(1), pages 131-156.
    2. repec:cte:whrepe:32377 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Basco, Sergi & Domènech, Jordi & Maravall, Laura, 2023. "Land reform and rural conflict. Evidence from 1930s Spain," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    4. Mireille Biraro & Jaap Zevenbergen & Berhanu Kefale Alemie, 2021. "Good Practices in Updating Land Information Systems that Used Unconventional Approaches in Systematic Land Registration," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-18, April.
    5. Ayaz, Muhammad & Mughal, Mazhar, 2023. "Land inequality and landlessness in Pakistan: Measuring the diverse nature of land disparities," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    6. Cepeda-Francese, Camilo A. & Ramírez-Álvarez, Aurora A., 2023. "Reforming justice under a security crisis: The case of the criminal justice reform in Mexico," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    7. Shunran Wang & Fangping Rao & Xianlei Ma & Xiaoping Shi, 2022. "Farmland Dispute Prevention: The Role of Land Titling, Social Capital and Household Capability," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-14, October.
    8. Aldenis Vásquez & Rafael Alvarado & Brayan Tillaguango & Cem Işık & Muntasir Murshed, 2023. "Impact of Social and Institutional Indicators on the Homicide Rate in Ecuador: An Analysis Using Advanced Time Series Techniques," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 169(1), pages 1-22, September.
    9. Muhammad Ayaz & Mazhar Mughal, 2023. "Land Inequality and Landlessness in Pakistan Authors," Working Papers hal-04004784, HAL.
    10. Mueller, Bernardo, 2022. "Property rights and violence in indigenous land in Brazil," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Property rights; Violence; Land reform; Mexico; Ejido;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
    • Q15 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Land Ownership and Tenure; Land Reform; Land Use; Irrigation; Agriculture and Environment

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