Evaluating Mexican Land Reform*.

In this paper I present a new approach to measuring efficiency of land-holding institutions. The measure is based on a two-sector model of the agricultural economy. In one, markets allocate resources to their productive tasks. In the other, land is legally distinguished from other resources and is assigned in accordance with specific administrative rules. The special land-use rules partially insulate the two sectors from one another and permit important differences to be perpetuated. The effect of these differences is manifested in the economic yield on productive resources employed in the two sectors, it is the object of this study to measure the differences in these yields in such a way that they reveal comparative efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]