Labor scarcity, land tenure, and historical legacy: Evidence from Mexico

Sellars, Emily A.; Alix‐Garcia, Jennifer

doi:10.1016/j.jdeveco.2018.07.014

Cited by 38 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…In 1800, densities are given in total population (rather than tribute units). These data and their reliability are described in extensive detail in Sellars & Alix-Garcia (2017).…”

Section: Colonial Populationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Locational fundamentals, trade, and the changing urban landscape of Mexico

Alix‐Garcia

Sellars

2020

Journal of Urban Economics

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Where do cities emerge and evolve? We examine persistence and change in the distribution of Mexico's urban population from the colonial era to the present, with emphasis on the country's 20th-century transformation. We demonstrate that while early trade patterns and historical persistence were instrumental in sowing the seeds of Mexico's contemporary city system, both technological change and policy significantly altered the trajectory of urbanization. The relative importance of locational fundamentals decreases over time, while the influence of international trade access increases, highlighting that political and economic decision-making shape the importance of geography for development. The findings suggest that although geographic advantage plays an important role in initial city emergence, geography is not destiny in urbanization.

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“…In 1800, densities are given in total population (rather than tribute units). These data and their reliability are described in extensive detail in Sellars & Alix-Garcia (2017).…”

Section: Colonial Populationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Locational fundamentals, trade, and the changing urban landscape of Mexico

Alix‐Garcia

Sellars

2020

Journal of Urban Economics

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“…Tenure is the way that land is owned or occupied, either solely or by groups, or the set of connections that are legitimated or commonly determined between people regarding land. The evolution of the tenure system occurred gradually over the decades, and it continues to change over time [16,17]. Sometimes, revolutions have affected the tenure systems, such as overturning available land-tenure systems via land redistribution or forced land collectivization during various twentieth-century revolutions [15].…”

Section: Overview Of Historical Descriptions Of Land Distributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Property demand and public infrastructure: A Study by Sellars and Alix-Garcia (2018) [17] revealed that short-term labor shortages could have long-term institutional implications. Their findings have significant implications for understanding the historical persistence and role of public infrastructure.…”

Section: Mutual Effects Of Land Distribution and Economic Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mutual Effects of Land Distribution and Economic Development: Evidence from Asia, Africa, and Latin America

Azadi

Vanhaute

2019

Land

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Land plays an important role in the economies of developing countries, and many theories connecting land inequality with different dimensions of economic development already exist. Even though efficacious land distribution allows societies to transition from poverty to a human capital-based developed economy, ongoing issues related to property rights, inequality, and the political economy of land distribution are unavoidable. The general objective of this paper is to explore the nexus between land distribution and economic development. The specific objectives are to: (i) identify which land distribution programs/activities contribute to economic development; (ii) investigate the role of stakeholders in land distribution programs that affect the growth of productivity; and (iii) assess the deficiencies of current land distribution policies in Asia, Africa, and Latin America to explore how economic development theories contribute to decreasing income inequality. This paper provides an overview of land distribution history and the main economic development theories. It also highlights the links between land distribution and the main elements of economic development. Finally, it provides a comparative review of the most recent empirical works regarding the characteristics, limitations, and potential (mutual) effects of land distribution and economic development settings on developing countries worldwide.

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“…The demographic collapse facilitates an easy and low‐cost acquisition of land by the Spanish colonial elites. Sellars and Alix‐Garcia () highlight the policies of colonial government aimed at fostering land acquisition such as acquisition incentives in population‐scarce areas, forced indigenous resettlement in disease‐impacted areas, and legal protections for those who acquired the land (Knight, ), which expanded the de facto political and economic power of the colonial elites with long‐lasting implications for the evolution of transaction costs as a form of contracting institutions. The disease environment laid the seeds of the demographic collapse is thus one of the more reliable plausibly exogenous source of variation in long‐run development.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Transaction costs and economic growth under common legal system: State‐level evidence from Mexico

Spruk

Kovač

2019

Economics & Politics

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This paper examines the contribution of administrative and procedural transaction costs to economic growth under common legal system. We show that administrative and procedural costs vary quite a lot even within the institutional environment sharing the common legal system. States with low‐cost business registration, low‐cost access to property rights and greater judicial efficiency tend to have consistently higher growth. The established effects are robust to alternative model specifications, heterogeneity bias, and to a variety of control variables that might confound the effects of administrative and procedural costs on growth. Such differences in costs are far from being trivial as we show that these within‐system differences might be instrumental in influencing economic growth. Lower administrative and procedural costs induce growth by increasing investment rate, lowering unemployment rate, encouraging labor supply and improving total factor productivity. In the counterfactual scenario, the transition from high‐cost to low‐cost regime is associated with substantial growth and development gains over time. By exploiting the variation in the disease environment, ethnic fractionalization and historical urbanization, we show that the negative effect of rising procedural and administrative costs on growth and development appears to be causal.

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Labor scarcity, land tenure, and historical legacy: Evidence from Mexico

Cited by 38 publications

References 28 publications

Locational fundamentals, trade, and the changing urban landscape of Mexico

Locational fundamentals, trade, and the changing urban landscape of Mexico

Mutual Effects of Land Distribution and Economic Development: Evidence from Asia, Africa, and Latin America

Transaction costs and economic growth under common legal system: State‐level evidence from Mexico

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