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Title: Property rights reform, migration, and structural transformation in Mexico
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2017
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Abstract: We use the rollout of a large-scale land certification program in Mexico from 1993 to 2006 to study how rural reforms establishing secure property rights determine patterns of migration, relocation of economic activity, and structural transformation. We find that certification leads higher-skilled agricultural labor to migrate, leaving behind economies less concentrated in agriculture, and with no significant change in wages. States' manufacturing capitals see corresponding gains in urban population and agricultural employment. Average wages increase significantly in these manufacturing capitals, suggesting growth and demand effects that outweigh employment competition usually associated with immigration. Sectoral wages only rise significantly in services, indicating that imperfect substitutability of labor is empirically important to understanding structural transformation and internal migration. These results also imply that natives in non-tradeable sectors are the most likely beneficiaries of increased local demand under immigration.
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Authors: De Janvry, Alain; Montoya, Eduardo; Sadoulet, Elisabeth
Publisher: University of California at Berkeley
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Migration and Immigration, Other
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