Common property and uncertainty: compensating coalitions by Mexico's pastoral ejidatarios

Half of the agricultural land in Mexico is controlled by organized community groups: comunidades and ejidos. Ejidos, groups that hold property in common, control approximately 40% of the agricultural land. This paper selected a group of ejidos on the "extensive margin' and analyzed family-level decision making within an environment of ecological and behavioral uncertainty. It argued that agricultural production in semiarid and arid zones requires resource mobility, particularly the freedom to graze livestock throughout a large, extensive land area. It also concludes that the breakdown in ejido productivity on these extensive, livestock-herding areas is due to a deterioration in property management at the community level. -from Authors