IESET.
Policies·mx_sembrando_vida_2019

Sembrando Vida agro-forestry cash transfer (Mexico)

MEX·2019 present·Morena + PT + PES (initial); continued under Sheinbaumcandidate
movestransfer expansionsectoral subsidyenvironmental stringency

What the policy did

Agro-forestry programme paying smallholders (~450k beneficiaries, ~1.1m hectares) a monthly stipend (~MXN 6,000) to plant fruit and timber species on their own land in 20 southern and central states. Administered by the Secretaría de Bienestar outside the Sagarpa / Sader rural-policy architecture. Included in US-Mexico migration discussions as a rural-retention instrument.

Policy-content fingerprint — what this policy moved, on which axes

Per invariant 3, reforms are scored by what they did on each channel-separated axis, not by the party that enacted them. This fingerprint is how the policy-match engine finds historical analogues.

intended
transfer expansion
fiscal.transfer_expansion
Size of cash and near-cash transfer programmes (unemployment benefits, means-tested assistance, universal child benefits). Architecturally distinct from forced-saving schemes — see condition welfare_architecture.
increased · moderate
larger transfer footprint
~450k beneficiaries receiving monthly cash stipend conditional on planting.
sectoral subsidy
fiscal.sectoral_subsidy
Targeted industrial and sectoral subsidies (renewable energy, chip manufacturing, agriculture, green hydrogen, etc).
increased · weak
expanded sectoral subsidies
Agro-forestry subsidy channel.
environmental stringency
regulatory.environmental_stringency
Environmental regulation stringency — emissions caps, standards, phase-out mandates, carbon pricing, renewable portfolio standards.
unchanged · weak
Environmental NGOs flag deforestation to qualify for payments.

Enacted by

Empirical evidence — linked hypotheses

Explicit links are curated by the author. Inferred links are hypotheses in the library that test the same axes this policy moved — the framework's answer to "what does the data say about a policy like this?".

The 2022-2026 wave of major-economy industrial-policy programmes — US IRA + CHIPS, EU Critical Raw Materials Act + Net-Zero Industry Act, EU Chips Act, Japan Green Transformation (GX, ¥150tn / ~$1tn announced), Korea K-Chips + Korean New Deal 2.0, China 14th Five-Year Plan + Made-in-China-2025-2.0 with semiconductors and clean energy as national-security frontier — represents the largest coordinated wave of industrial-policy spending in the post-1970s OECD record.
green_industrial_policy_global_chip_race_2022_2026inferred
viafiscal.sectoral_subsidyregulatory.environmental_stringency
INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — insufficient observations after listwise deletion (20)
run pending
Large-scale universal or near-universal transfer programmes produce a three-order causal chain.
universal_transfer_programmes_labour_force_participation_declineinferred
viafiscal.transfer_expansion
partial — Prime-age LFP fell by ≥1.0pp in 2/5 cases (threshold for SUPPORTED: ≥3). First-order improved in 3/4 cases. Mixed: consistent with the spec's design-d…
partial
Universal single-payer healthcare systems (NHS, Canadian Medicare) produce lower per-capita healthcare expenditure with equal or better life-expectancy outcomes than the US multi-payer system.
single_payer_cost_outcome_comparisoninferred
viafiscal.transfer_expansion
supported_subset — cost test PASSES (USA per-capita PPP $10957 vs GBR/CAN mean $5663, ratio 1.93x > 1.5); single-payer matched-or-beat USA on 4/5 tested outcome…
supported
Higher broad state-consumption burden proxies predict worse child-mortality nutrition-risk outcomes.
state_agriculture_controls_malnutritioninferred
viafiscal.transfer_expansionfiscal.sectoral_subsidy
PARTIAL — coef=+1.143, p=0.105 (above α=0.1); direction inconclusive
partial
Costa Rican post-1950 development path achieves life expectancy comparable to the US at roughly one-fifth the per-capita material throughput, demonstrating the feasibility of high-wellbeing low-throughput trajectories.
costa_rica_wellbeing_throughput_efficiencyinferred
viafiscal.transfer_expansionregulatory.environmental_stringency
refuted — homicide test fails: CRI homicide rate 10.9/100k vs USA 5.0/100k (ratio 2.19x > 1.5 threshold). v2 SUPPORTED was indicator-gamed; canonical wellbeing …
refuted
Mandatory pharmacy-level generic substitution predicts pharmaceutical-spending reductions without worse mortality outcomes.
generic_substitution_mandate_savings_no_harminferred
viafiscal.transfer_expansionfiscal.sectoral_subsidy
REFUTED — coef=+811.4 (sign opposite claim -), p=0.00685
refuted
The American Rescue Plan Act (March 2021) expansion of the Child Tax Credit to USD 3000-3600 per child with full refundability and monthly disbursement (July-December 2021) produced a measurable and immediate decline in monthly child-poverty rate of at least 4 percentage points (Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia time-series), with the credit's December 2021 expiration producing a corresponding immediate reversal — providing high-frequency event-window evidence on near-instantaneous cash-transfer-to-poverty mechanics.
welfare_transfer_us_arpa_expanded_ctc_2021inferred
viafiscal.transfer_expansionfiscal.sectoral_subsidy
WEAKENED - SPM child poverty fell 4.5pp and rebounded 7.2pp; monthly CPSP and parental-LFP gates are not loaded
refuted
Cuban post-1991 Special Period forced degrowth (real GDP per capita contracted ~35% over 1989-1993 after the Soviet bloc collapse cut off concessional sugar/oil terms) demonstrated that basic-needs provision (life expectancy, infant mortality, primary-school enrolment) can be maintained — or improved — during rapid material-throughput reduction when institutions are aligned around free universal health and education.
cuba_special_period_degrowth_basic_needsinferred
viafiscal.transfer_expansionregulatory.environmental_stringency
inconclusive — canonical basic-needs basket incomplete. v2 graded SUPPORTED on a 3-indicator favourable subset (LE/IMR/enrolment) while caloric supply collapsed…
run pending

Similar historical policies

Ranked by axis-fingerprint overlap with this policy. Direction match bolded — those are the closest historical analogues. Shape of the match is what drives policy-outcome comparison, not the country or party label.

References