Incentives, Supervision, and Sharecropper Productivity
Although sharecropping has long fascinated economists, the determinants of this contractual form are still poorly understood and the debate over the extent of moral hazard is far from settled. The authors address both issues by emphasizing the role of landlord supervision. When tenant effort is observable, but at a cost to the landlord, otherwise identical share-tenants can receive different levels of supervision and have different productivity. Unique data on monitoring frequency collected from sharetenants in rural Pakistan confirm that, controlling for selection, "supervised" tenants are significantly more productive than "unsupervised" ones. Landlords' decisions regarding the intensity of supervision and the type of incentive contract to offer depend importantly on the cost of supervising tenants.
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Format: | Policy Research Working Paper biblioteca |
Language: | English |
Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2007-02
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Subjects: | ADVERSE SELECTION, AGRICULTURE, CONSTANT RETURNS TO SCALE, DIMINISHING RETURNS, EVICTION, HOUSEHOLDS, INCREASING RETURNS, INEFFICIENCY, LAND OWNERSHIP, LAND REFORM, LANDLORD, LANDLORDS, LANDOWNERS, LEASING, LIABILITY, MORAL HAZARD, POINTS, PRODUCTIVITY, PRODUCTIVITY INCREASES, PROPERTY RIGHTS, RENTS, RISK AVERSE, RISK AVERSION, RISK NEUTRAL, TENANCY, TENANTS, TENURE, TYPES OF CONTRACTS, VALUE OF OUTPUT, VILLAGES, WEALTH, YIELD, |
Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2007/02/7351778/incentives-supervision-sharecropper-productivity http://hdl.handle.net/10986/7128 |
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Summary: | Although sharecropping has long
fascinated economists, the determinants of this contractual
form are still poorly understood and the debate over the
extent of moral hazard is far from settled. The authors
address both issues by emphasizing the role of landlord
supervision. When tenant effort is observable, but at a cost
to the landlord, otherwise identical share-tenants can
receive different levels of supervision and have different
productivity. Unique data on monitoring frequency collected
from sharetenants in rural Pakistan confirm that,
controlling for selection, "supervised" tenants
are significantly more productive than
"unsupervised" ones. Landlords' decisions
regarding the intensity of supervision and the type of
incentive contract to offer depend importantly on the cost
of supervising tenants. |
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