Fighting Rural Poverty in Latin America: New Evidence of the Effects of Education, Demographics, and Access to Land

Measuring the poverty reduction potential of land in rural Mexico

“…An increase of one RFE hectare increases monthly consumption by 11.5 pesos, which is only 1.5% of average monthly consumption in the sample. 9 This result is of an order of magnitude similar to estimates reported in López and Valdés (2000a). Choice of an adequate indicator of welfare is thus important in assessing the poverty-reduction value of land.…”

“…Justification for these programs is based on the assumption that land has a strong welfare generating potential for beneficiaries. Yet, land reform programs have frequently met with limited success in reducing poverty, and a number of recent empirical studies has called into question the importance of land as a poverty-reducing instrument (López and Valdés, 2000a). There is, however, a remarkable absence of solid empirical evidence measuring the potential of land in reducing poverty, particularly carefully taking into account the specific conditions under which land is used by beneficiaries, when we well know that these conditions are key determinants of success or failure.…”

Agricultural Productivity and Poverty Alleviation: What Role for Technological Innovation

“…Technological innovation is considered now as an integral part of the reform package needed to stimulate agricultural growth and poverty (Lopez and Valdez, 2000). More than by just spurring economic growth, technology can do much to reduce poverty and environmental damage.…”

Access to Land, Rural Development and Public Action: The When and the How

“…However, an econometric study by López and Valdés (2000) in six Latin American countries finds that access to land ownership has a quite small effect on income, while Carter and May (1999) do not find any impact on income in South Africa if other constraints that poor households face, especially their lack of access to financial capital, are not removed.…”