Land Redistribution and Agricultural Frontier Expansion

In developing countries, especially in Latin America, two separate approaches to providing land to farmers have been widely implemented: (1) opening state-owned frontier areas to settlement, which potentially increases deforestation, and (2) redistributing existing farmland. This paper argues that, in some contexts, land redistribution might act as a substitute for agricultural frontier expansion. A theoretical model is developed, which demonstrates that factors discouraging frontier settlement make the redistribution of already cultivated farmland more likely. An empirical analysis of Mexico suggests that the creation of institutional impediments to deforestation on the frontier increases the probability of land redistribution.