Shaping inequality? Property rights, landed elites and public lands in Colombia

Juan David Torres ()

No 20514, Documentos CEDE from Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE

Abstract: How does the enforcement of property rights affects land accumulation by landed elites? Using a unique classification of the local agricultural workforce and a differencein- difference framework I show how landed elites, relative to landless peasants, benefited from Colombian land reform during the late 1930s through the appropriation of large land allocations. This is explained by a feature of the reform: lower enforcement of property rights, which reduced the costs of further accumulation. I provide evidence on the elite investments in de facto political power that drive this empowerment: competition for resources in local elections and collective action embodied in landowner associations. This, in a context of tension between good-intended progressive policies and a general process of collective action pushed forward by landowners toward the defense of property, in which commitments for targeted democratization of land were hardly accomplished. My findings shed light on a possible equilibrium between democracy and high inequality in which economic elites exploit institutional features empowering themselves to preserve certainty regarding their own property rights.

Keywords: Land reform; property rights; public land allocations; landed elites; collective action (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 N56 P48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 100
Date: 2022-10-26
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-cdm, nep-dev and nep-his
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:col:000089:020514

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