Crown Versus Settler Colonialism in Mexico

Juan Galán

No 21268, Documentos CEDE from Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE

Abstract: This paper examines the persistent effects of Crown versus settler colonialism. Exploiting a spatial regression discontinuity design in Mexico, I document that regions where the relative power of the colonial state over settler elites was higher exhibit higher historical and contemporary economic prosperity. In contrast to the view that Crown judges disproportionately weakened property rights, court records analyzed with natural language processing algorithms suggest they constrained settlers from expropriating indigenous lands. In the long-run, a feedback loop appears to have consolidated an emerging rural middle class, whose relative enfranchisement tied it less to patronage politics, encouraging public good provision and labor mobility out of agriculture.

Keywords: Colonialism; courts; property rights; economic development; Mexico. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D73 K40 N46 O12 P14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 73 pages
Date: 2024-12-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-his and nep-law
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:col:000089:021268

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