about 40% of each types of plots receiving an average of 50 kg/ha. In line with factor equalization as presented in table 2, use of oxen for land preparation is less unequal although, with a difference of 4 oxen-pair days/ha, it is still higher on owned than leased plots.

Although one might expect that, to reduce the scope for shirking, landlords might require tenants to grow less labor intensive crops on leased plots descriptive statistics suggest otherwise; _teff_ , the traditional labor intensive staple is grown on 36% of leased vs. 29% of own plots. Multivariate analysis will be required to assess which of these effects can be attributed to share tenancy. Before conducting such analysis, we report descriptive statistics for matched tenant-landlord pairs that can give an indication of whether rental markets transfer land from less to more able and productive farmers, thus providing some initial evidence on potential productivity impacts of land rental contracts.<sup>12</sup> Comparing input and output quantities, plot characteristics, and crop choice by operator-cum-landlords and their rental partners who also cultivate their own land (i.e., owner-cum-tenants) in table 4 points to some interesting observations. The value of crop output per hectare differs markedly between the two categories with average productivity on plots operated by owner-cum-tenants 20% higher than on those cultivated by landlord farmers. The top panel suggests that this difference could be partly explained by observed input applications: with the exception of manure and use (but not the amount) of hired labor, the intensity with which family labor, oxen power, and chemical fertilizer are used is higher on plots cultivated by operator-cum-tenants compared to their rental partners. This could imply higher productivity by tenants compared to their partners who cultivate some of their land but econometric analysis is needed to confirm this and explore sources that could underlie such differences.

# **3. Conceptual framework and empirical strategy**

Use of partner data allows us to take a three-pronged approach to assess productivity implications of land rental, each with different samples. To assess existence and magnitude of Marshallian inefficiency, we compare productivity on owner-cum-tenants‟ owned and sharecropped plots. If such inefficiency were outweighed by differences in farming ability, rental transactions could still contribute to higher levels of productive efficiency. The tenant and landlord sample is thus used to compare productivity on owneroperated plots by tenants and their landlords to estimate differences in ability differences or equivalently the maximum potential productivity gain from land rental. Comparing productivity between landlords‟ owned and cultivated and leased out plots provides an estimate of the actual productivity impact of land rental, i.e., the extent to which potential productivity gains are realized in practice.

> 12 In line with what emerged at the household level, comparing plots in our two samples (table 3 for the entire sample and appendix table 2 for plots with matching partner information), points towards very few significant differences, suggesting that the latter are representative of the overall population.

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