partial vertical integration risk shifting and product rejection in the high value export supply chain the ghana pineapple sector summary high value export supply chains hold potential to improve smallholders welfare but their relative production inefficiency and moral hazard problems can cause exporters to prefer vertically integrated plantation production however pineapple exporters in ghana produce both for their own account and purchase from smallholders we hypothesize that vertical integration is only partial because exporters face large market risks that smallholders surprisingly are better able to absorb we show empirically that exporters average rejection rate of export quality fruit is high and varies in response to unanticipated fluctuations in european demand these results support the hypothesis and are consistent with theories of partial vertical integration but not the standard principal agent paradigm

the role of consumption credit in agricultural tenancy abstract in traditional agriculture it is common practice for landlords to give consumption loans to their own tenants if the tenant derives all his income from the landlord it is puzzling that the landlors needs another means of expropriating the surplus he could just raise the rent the paper suggests that consumption credit may be a side payment designed to enable the landlord to absorb the tenant s risk due to weather uncertainty without weakening his incentive to work tenancy is modelled as an agency contract designed in terms of information may be available to the landlord

sharecropping and the capitalist transition in agriculture some evidence from the highlands of ecuador abstract sharecropping has been the subject of much debate among economists concerned with static efficiency and to some extent with equity this paper shifts the focus to the dynamics of structural change the research reported adds to the discussion a detailed account of a large number of sharecropping contracts and why they vary and offers a theory of the relationship between sharecropping as practised in the ecuadorian province of carchi and a particular pattern of structural change which is described as the transition to an agrarian structure dominated by capitalised family farms the prevalent use of wage labour on sharecropped land and the place of sharecropping in intergenerational asset transfers are shown to be important elements in explaining this transition

cost sharing arrangements under sharecropping moral hazard incentive flexibility and risk this paper explains the rationale and describes the characteristics of cost sharing arrangements in rural developing economies focusing on the risk and incentive properties of alternative cost contracts and on their flexibility their ability to adapt to environmental changes it is shown that where labor inputs are difficult to monitor the rule that cost shares and output shares be equalized will not hold and is not constrained pareto efficient and that cost sharing contracts have a decided advantage over contracts which specify the level of inputs whenever there are asymmetries of information regarding production technology between the landlord and the tenant

changing the economics of environmental degradation in madagascar lessons from the national environmental action plan process abstract this paper examines the economic logic and implicit assumptions used to develop and support the national environmental action plan neap process in madagascar the study focuses on three key issues how were the costs of the main environmental problems identified and estimated what underlying factors were identified as causing these problems and how is the neap implementation strategy designed to change these underlying factors the most difficult tasks for neaps will continue to be identifying the key specific underlying factors causing the problem and determining which of these factors are actually feasible for a neap process to change the analysis of the madagascar makes clear that key environmental problems are driven by land use decisions of large numbers of geographically dispersed rural and urban inhabitants these problems are not easy or even feasible targets for specific environmental policy changes if this is the case as it seems to be in madagascar then it is perhaps unrealistic to hope that neaps as constituted can provide a framework for both understanding and alleviating a country s key environmental problems

determinants and consequences of land reform implementation in the philippines abstract unlike the experience of other developing countries land reform in the philippines has been successful in converting many of share tenants to land reform beneficiaries this study indicates that the implementation of land reform is positively associated with yield growth made possible by the adoption of modern seed fertilizer technology a major reason underlying such association is considered to be an increased economic interest of tenants in land reform arising from divergence of rental value of land from leasehold rent and amortization fees prescribed by law

contract choice and enforcement in an agrarian community agricultural tenancy in upland java this study explores the conditions under which a certain contract is preferred to others through an intensive survey of an upland village in west java despite an obvious difficulty in enforcing the terms of share contract in a highly complex intercropping system no significant difference in allocative efficiency was found between share tenancy and other forms of land tenure the results indicate that share tenancy was chosen only by the landlords who had the ability to enforce contractual terms at a low opportunity cost

the existence of self enforcing implicit contracts implicit contracts are nontrivial nash equilibria to the post hiring trading game between a worker and the employer these are supported by intrafirm rather than labor market reputations the existence of an implicit contract that supports efficient trade is proved in a simple model

evaluation of china s electric energy efficiency under environmental constraints a dea cross efficiency model based on game relationship abstract the traditional data envelopment analysis dea model ignores the cooperation relationship among decision making units dmus so it is difficult to evaluate the dmus efficiency reasonably in this study we use a cross efficiency model considering the game relationship of dmus to evaluate and analyze the provincial electric energy efficiency of china the power industry panel data of china s 30 provinces from 2005 to 2014 are used to evaluate the energy efficiency of china s provincial power industry under environmental constraints in addition based on the obtained values of electric energy efficiency clustering analysis is implemented and the regional similarity in electric energy efficiency is analyzed the results indicate that in the past decade china s provincial electric energy efficiency has not significantly improved and efficiency values have a certain degree of volatility especially in western china in general the electric energy efficiency of eastern china is significantly higher than central and western china the clustering analysis further demonstrates that there is no polarization phenomenon in china s electric energy efficiency in recent years the electric energy efficiency of western china has been greatly improved with significant volatility it reveals that the electric energy efficiency of western china is sensitive to the environment the implementation of energy policies should be adapted to local conditions in the process of formulating policies for improving electric energy efficiency the provincial government should improve the regional opening up layout and establish effective coordination mechanisms among different regions

land and the transition from a dual to a modern economy tenurial contracts in agriculture can be an initial source of wealth accumulation for dynasties of poor credit constrained individuals the income from such contracts can be invested in education of offspring who then can find work in the formal manufacturing sector this process allows the economy to develop into a modern economy with a large manufacturing sector an excessive number of poor individuals competing for scarce land however drives up the rental price of land which then slows the process of accumulation and forces the economy to converge to a less efficient dual equilibrium in such cases a policy of land redistribution coupled with a temporary education subsidy may be needed to push the economy to a modern equilibrium

the equilibrium vector of pairwise bargained agency contracts with diverse actors and principals owning a fixed resource abstract the equilibrium vector of agency contracts where actors on both sides of the market are heterogenous and principals own a fixed resource is characterized and analyzed here auction markets are replaced by simultaneous multiple pair wise bargaining between principals and agents it is shown that the traditional analysis focusing on a single contract may lead to serious errors in addition the present analysis yields results concerning the equilibrium matching of principals and agents resource allocation across contracts and intercontract organizational externalities the latter are shown to create system inefficiencies

abusa the structural history of an economic contract this speculative essay seeks an interpretation of abusa a share cropping arrangement which has been of fundamental importance in the development of the ghanaian cocoa industry according to theoretical expectations such an arrangement is both inefficient and inequitable a pre modern or pre capitalist productive relationship which will inevitably yield to a pattern of fixed rents and wage labour here the role of abusa in the spectacular growth of the cocoa economy and in its recent decline is examined with reference to the development of individual contracts it is argued that this ontogenetic development of abusa is structured by the changing domestic circumstances of farm owner and farm worker their competing interests in a maturing cocoa farm are negotiated and expressed in a sequence of contractual arrangements which gives the worker increasing access to the land and the product of his own labour it is suggested that if the evolution of productive relations towards more evidently capitalist

contractual structure in agriculture abstract this paper develops a generalized double sided moral hazard model of contract choice in agricultural production with mutual monitoring of each other by the landlord and the tiller who generally have different levels of farming efficiency and are risk averse using this model we formally prove that the optimal contract maximizes the output net of the risk bearing and agency costs of both the parties and carry out a simulation exercise which helps explain many of the tenancy related issues the difference in the farming efficiency of the two sides often ignored in previous analysis turns out to be the principal determinant of the contract offered to a tiller

tenancy and family resources a model and some empirical analysis abstract in this paper we discuss with the help of a simple model the role of family resource endowments in determining the extent of land leased in or leased out by a household this becomes important when the market for some of these resources is either not functioning at all or is functioning imperfectly we focus on three such resources which have some relevance in indian agriculture these are 1 the family s managerial skill 2 its endowment of human labour and 3 its endowment of draft animal labour household level data from six villages of maharashtra and andhra pradesh are also utilized to test some of the hypotheses

credit and sharecropping in agrarian societies this paper considers a model of linkage between land labor and credit transactions in the context of sharecropping the paper s objectives are a to derive and characterize the equilibrium in a model of a land scarce labour abundant economy under sharecropping given an infinitely elastic supply of identical sharecroppers at a reservation utility and b to demonstrate that in an imperfect market a landlord may offer credit to his tenant sometimes even at a subsidized rate of interest without necessarily insisting that the sharecropper borrow only from him precluding an involuntary linkage between credit and land transations it has been demonstrated that regardless of the presence or absence of linkage or any other control by the landlord as long as he can vary the size of the plot given to a tenant and there are enough potential tenants in equilibrium contracts a tenants utility under sharecropping will be the same as that which he could have obtained as a full time wage laborer this result implies that policies other than land reform will not affect the welfare of tenants

the evaluation of electric energy consumption in the brazilian residential sector a technological improvement proposal in order to increase its efficiency abstract in light of brazil s socio economic development in the last 20 years the population has greater access to consumer goods hence impacting the escalating growth in electricity demand thereby resulting in the need for substantial investments in electricity generation and transmission in contrast government institutions have not taken effective measures to increase the energy efficiency of the most impactful energy consuming appliances which would reduce the need for energy investments through econometric models brazil s residential electricity consumption was projected up to 2030 and it is predicted that results can be achieved if through tax exemption the government can promote the use of more energy efficient technologies through an economic and financial evaluation our study analyzes the potential effects of a decrease in tax revenues for the state in light of lower investment needs in energy generation and distribution

two tier land tenure system and sustained economic growth in post 1978 rural china abstract the two tier land tenure system has been widely blamed for the problems in land allocation and in land specific investment observed in the postreform rural china greater privatization of property rights in land has been proposed to enable productive farmers to acquire more land to promote land circulation to improve farmers access to credit and to encourage farm investment it is argued here that in the presence of multiple market distortions land privatization is unlikely to provide a solution to the agricultural problems rather an approach which refines the existing framework of the two tier ownership system offers more promise

contestable markets and the theory of industry structure a review article contestable markets and the theory of industry structure is a comprehensive integration expansion and application of the ideas of william j baumol elizabeth e bailey john c panzar robert d willig edward zajac and their associates on contestability theory in 16 chapters baumol panzar and willig 1982a try to make precise especially in a multiproduct context ideas related to the chicago school approach to industrial organization to argue forcefully that potential entry disciplines monopoly and at the same time to offer a product more directly useful to the policymaker than the more abstract mathematical writings on increasing returns there are at least five basic ideas presented here first under certain structural conditions on technology and certain technical requirements on demands frictionless entry and exit together with equal access to technology lead to a type of competitive equilibrium with desirable welfare consequences even though there may be only one active firm in equilibrium a market with the foregoing characteristics of frictionless reversible entry and equal access to technology is called a perfectly contestable market by baumol et al 1982a the market for air travel between two cities serves as a canonical example such a market may support only one airline but the active airline must price at cost to prevent a price cutting rival airline from flying in and skimming off customers the authors conclude that the presence of such shadow entrants will force competition like behavior by the incumbent even though the market may be a natural monopoly second baumol et al 1982a define natural monopoly as a situation where the technology is characterized by a subadditive cost function that is to say c l7 yt l c y for any collection of output

sharecropping and the interlinking of agrarian markets one of the often noted features of less developed agrarian economies is the existence of interlinkages among the land labor credit and product markets the landlord is often the supplier of credit he frequently purchases and markets the output of the tenant farmers and often sells raw materials and even consumption goods to his tenant farmers how can this phenomenon be explained what are the welfare consequences of attempts to restrict these practices which often seem to constitute restraints on free trade these are the questions to which this paper is addressed a general set of arguments applicable to both competitive and noncompetitive environments are presented to situations where all the terms of the contract are determined in an optimal way as well as to situations where many of the terms are specified institutionally section i examines interlinked credit and tenancy contracts section ii examines interlinked marketing and tenancy contracts section iii points out the possible interlinking between labor contracts and consumption goods markets and section iv presents the different equilibrium frameworks discussed in the paper such as monopoly monopsony competition and equilibria with surplus labor

limited liability wealth differences and tenancy contracts in agrarian economies abstract an explanation is provided for two observations concerning variations in the choice of tenants and their welfare differences in tenants wealth imply corresponding differences in liability when default is possible on fixed rental commitments in this context the inability of landlords to specify their tenants effort lead to effort choices that vary with the type of contract offered the selection of tenants and the contract terms they receive thus depend on wealth with wealthier tenants being preferred and receiving fixed rent contracts these results also predict that wealthier tenants earn higher profits on their leased plots

a normative empirical analysis of state duties and corporate responsibilities related to adverse human rights impacts on the amazonian minerals energy frontier abstract the article probes the existence of a minerals energy complex mec a concept developed in south africa to describe the strong interlinkages between the mining and energy sector in the brazilian amazon within the framework of the mec the authors conduct a normative analysis based on the united nations guiding principles for business and human rights ungps of the state duties and corporate responsibilities for adverse human rights impacts in the complex the authors use a single in depth case study approach focussing on the case of the belo monte hydroelectric dam in the amazonian state of para the mec proves to be a useful framework for studying the advancement of hydroelectricity and mining projects on the amazonian frontier the analysis indicates that the brazilian minerals and energy sectors are mutually dependent and have overlapping interests and decision making structures applying the mec framework to the belo monte case serves to clarify and detangle the relationships between the various actors associated with the dam s adverse impacts this provides a foundation for the normative analysis of the responsibilities and actions required of each actor based on the internationally accepted standards in the ungps by applying the mec as an analytical research framework and drawing on the ungps for normative guidance the present study contributes to the academic literature on corporate responsibility as well as providing policy and decision makers with a normative empirical analysis that can be drawn upon to improve policy and ensure that corporate activity contributes to sustainable development

food insecurity income inequality and the changing comparative advantage in world agriculture i would like to argue in this article that in the process of economic development in land poor countries in asia agriculture faces three distinctly different problems food insecurity sectoral income inequality and the declining food self sufficiency associated with the declining comparative advantage in agriculture at the high income stage massive imports of food grains to asia if they occur will aggravate the world food shortage which will have significant implications for the poverty incidence in the world i argue that in order to avoid such a tragedy asia should expand farm size to reduce labor cost by adopting large scale mechanization sub saharan africa should realize a green revolution in grain production and latin america should further expand its grain production capacity

the agent agents problem payment by relative output this paper begins an investigation into the incentive problems at a firm when the effort of the employer and the employees combines to determine final output the major conclusion is that optimal reward functions in this circumstance will in general value the performance of a worker relative to that of his peers the paper thus joins a growing literature associated with the work of lazear and rosen on rank order tournaments

collective agricultural production a solution for transition economies abstract the paper examines theoretical reasons and provides examples for productivity differences between agricultural service cooperatives and collectives service cooperatives can utilize economies of scale enhance competitiveness and provide technical information advantages that often outweighed problems of free riding low investment and excessive political intervention agricultural collectives while not adding substantial advantages are in addition associated with problems of supervision and effort supply tendencies to substitute casual workers or mechanization for regular members and low investment incentives while collective forms of organization in transition economies respond to high risk and market imperfections they do so inefficiently policies that create conditions for service cooperatives to compete may lead to large productivity gains

consumption smoothing migration and marriage evidence from rural india a significant proportion of migration in low income countries particularly in rural areas is composed of moves by women for the purpose of marriage we seek to explain these mobility patterns by examining marital arrangements among indian households in particular we hypothesize that the marriage of daughters to locationally distant dispersed yet kinship related households is a manifestation of implicit interhousehold contractual arrangements aimed at mitigating income risks and facilitating consumption smoothing in an environment characterized by information costs and spatially covariant risks analysis of longitudinal south indian village data lends support to the hypothesis marriage cum migration contributes significantly to a reduction in the variability of household food consumption farm households afflicted with more variable profits tend to engage in longer distance marriage cum migration the hypothesized and observed marriage cum migration patterns are in dissonance with standard models of marriage or migration that are concerned primarily with search costs and static income gains