not the household participated and had a relation in a village burial association _(‘iddir’)_ . Inclusion of this variable in the respective regression could provide a first opportunity to test for network effects.

# **III. Data and Descriptive Statistics**

Our panel data point to a high level of land rental activity, almost exclusive reliance on sharecropping, and a prevalence of rental transactions between close kin. Supply of land to rental markets is concentrated among female-headed households who lack draught power. Thus, contrary to other countries, rentals lead to operational holdings being more concentration than owned area. Data also point towards lower rates of input application and output per area cultivated on sharecropped as compared to own land.

# **_A. Data and Household Level Evidence_**

We use data from three rounds of a longitudinal survey of rural households in the Amhara region of the Ethiopian highlands that comprise production information during the main agricultural season ( _meher,_ i.e. September-February) of the 1999, 2001, and 2004 agricultural years. In each period the survey, which was implemented by the Department of Economics of Addis Ababa University collaboration with the Department of Economics of Gothenburg University, covers about 1520 randomly selected households from 12 villages ( _kebeles_ ) in 6 districts ( _woredas_ ) in South Wollo and East Gojam zones of the Amhara region. Among others, data for every year include detailed information on household resource endowments, crop production inputs and outputs at the plot level, demographic characteristics of households and their participation in land, labor and credit markets.

Table 1 provides household level information for the whole sample and separately for those leasing out, leasing in, and remaining in autarky.<sup>12</sup> An first interesting observation is that land markets are very active with almost half the households (46%) participating in rental markets either on the demand or the supply side and only 54% remaining in autarky. The fact that participation rates in our sample are rather balanced between the two sides of the market (20% leasing out; 26% leasing in) highlights that the vast majority of transactions is between households in the same village. A second observation of interest is that, with 40%, a significant share of those renting out (compared to 12% among those in autarky and 3% among those renting in) are female headed. With more than 70% of all female headed households renting out land, rental seems to assume a key function in transferring land from resource poor female-headed households to resource rich male-headed ones and the equity impact of such transfers may be of interest.<sup>13</sup> Third, with few differences in area owned between the different groups (1.08, 1.08, and 1.12 hectares, respectively), operation of land markets leads to a slight concentration of operational land

> 12 Almost all the households involved in the land rental market participated in either renting-out or -in land with less then 1% of households reporting to simultaneously leasing out and leasing in of land.

> 13 The gender dimension and possible cultural factors attached to it is only one of the many facets of land rental market operation; in fact even if female headed households are excluded from the analysis , those who rent in are significantly more wealthy than those renting out.

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