This Land is Mine: Family Relations and Institutional Change in Rural Mexico.

Many social scientists emphasize the role of private property rights in providing the foundation for economic growth, but they typically expect these institutions to emerge only when sociopolitical conditions provide incentives for economic elites to demand these rights from the state. As such, we know less about the conditions under which the poor demand private rights. This paper addresses this gap in the literature on private property rights by analyzing the PROCEDE program in Mexico-a land reform initiative designed to induce small farmers (ejidatarios) to voluntarily convert formerly state owned lands into privately owned parcels. I present the results of interview and data from three ejidos in the Bajío region of Mexico, in which I test hypotheses derived from the New Institutional Economics, state-society relations, and moral economy approaches. While each approach captures some aspect of the decision-making process, ejidatarios most commonly cite quarrels among family members when explaining their reasons for acquiring private rights. In light of these findings, I conclude by suggesting that family size and the norms that govern household-level "survival strategies," including inheritance norms, may be omitted variables that explain intra-regional variations in ejidatario responses to PROCEDE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]