Incentives, Supervision, and Sharecropper Productivity

Though sharecropping remains widespread, its determinants are still poorly understood and the debate over the extent of moral hazard is far from settled. We address both issues by analyzing the role of landlord supervision. When landlords vary in their cost of supervision, otherwise identical share-tenants can have different productivity. Unique data on monitoring frequency collected from share-tenants in rural Pakistan confirms that, controlling for selection, 'supervised' tenants are significantly more productive than 'unsupervised' ones. Also, landlords' decisions regarding monitoring and incentives offered to tenants depend importantly on the cost of supervision.

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Jacoby, Hanan G., Mansuri, Ghazala
Format: Journal Article biblioteca
Language:EN
Published: 2009
Subjects:Economic Development: Agriculture, Natural Resources, Energy, Environment, Other Primary Products O130, Economic Development: Regional, Urban, and Rural Analyses, Transportation O180, Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets Q120,
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5876
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Summary:Though sharecropping remains widespread, its determinants are still poorly understood and the debate over the extent of moral hazard is far from settled. We address both issues by analyzing the role of landlord supervision. When landlords vary in their cost of supervision, otherwise identical share-tenants can have different productivity. Unique data on monitoring frequency collected from share-tenants in rural Pakistan confirms that, controlling for selection, 'supervised' tenants are significantly more productive than 'unsupervised' ones. Also, landlords' decisions regarding monitoring and incentives offered to tenants depend importantly on the cost of supervision.