Land distribution, prices and ownership : the case of Cundinamarca during the second half of the 19th century

Abstract

During the 19th century Export Economy had consequences on land markets. In this way, some "institutional arrangements” in land property rights were required, which had consequences on land prices, distribution and ownership. Due to the difficulty for collecting quantitative information, they are few quantitative writings about land for the case of Colombia. In this sense, the aim of this work is to understand, through quantitative information, the importance that land and land property rights had in Colombian history and its current economic performance. I will take into consideration the Region (Departamento) of Cundinamarca. As primary sources I used the information contained in the Cadastres Surveys made in 1878 and in 1890 and in the land deeds taken from the office of Notaría I in Bogotá (1868-1900). Based on this quantitative information this book is composed by three chapters. First chapter reveals that in Cundinamarca land was distributed in an unequal manner (land gini were quite high). Nevertheless, this research goes beyond this result of land inequality. In fact, contrary to the traditional neo-institutionalism point of view this research proves that land concentration not necessarily led to bad economic outcomes but that may lead to good or bad outcomes in human capital accumulation, depending on the institutional context. The second chapter that composes this research is about the trend of "urban” land prices in Cundinamarca (1868-1900). In this chapter I estimated a deflated series of land prices using the information of the Notaryś I office from Bogotá. The last chapter analyzes the relationship between Export Economy, land ownership, prices and distribution (Gini).