Showing papers on "Leasehold estate published in 1980"

Agrarian reforms in developing rural economies characterized by interlinked credit and tenancy markets.

Abstract: The paper concentrates on a model of linkage between land, labor and credit transactions in the context of sharecropping. The proof follows from the result that the tenant's optimal effort per hectare is a decreasing function of the size of the plot he cultivates. The utility equivalence result has the fundamental implication that policies other than land reform will leave the welfare of each potential tenant unaltered while affecting the level of output, extent of tenancy and the welfare of landlords. With the possibility of linking tenancy and credit contracts, it is shown that the landlord will resort to linking only in a situation where it will lower the cost of credit to the tenant. Government subsidization of tenant's credit results only in the subsidization of landlords. The model is also able to provide a theoretical underpinning for two almost opposite phenomena that are sometimes observed: low interest consumption loans from landlord to tenant and the opposite, high interest, low volume loans. In equilibrium, a tenant's utility obtained through sharecropping will be the same as that which he could have obtained as a fulltime wage laborer.

Farm size, tenure and productivity in an area of bangladesh

Abstract: The study attempted to measure and compare resource use and productivity with respect to farm size and tenancy in an area of Bangladesh. It used empirical data collected through a lengthy intensive farm survey. It was observed that productivity per acre increased up to certain level (about 4.0 acres) then decreased as the farm size increased. Medium farms (2.0 - 3.99 acres) were found relatively more productive than small farms (below 2.0 acres) and large farms (4.0 acres and above). Share cropping tenancy was found to be inefficient in resource use and production, but cost-sharing tenancy had some favourable impact toward improving productivity on sharecropped land.

Labor Contracting in Turn-of-the-Century California Agriculture

Abstract: During the course of U.S. economic development, the institutions used to organize agricultural labor have undergone interesting and sometimes puzzling transformations. The transitions from wage contracting to tenancy observed in the post-bellum South and in nineteenth-century Iowa have been studied extensively.2 This paper evaluates the relatively neglected transition from wage labor to tenancy that occurred in the California fruit orchards during the period 1900–1910.3 Before 1903 Chinese and Japanese orchard workers were organized via the padrone system of wage labor, but in an abrupt series of events there ensued a shift into tenancy so dramatic that by 1909 contemporary observers noted that virtually all orchards were under tenant control. The fact that the new tenants were recent Japanese immigrants prompted investigations by the Immigration Commission as well as other agencies so that this particular shift into tenancy is documented in greater detail than those occurring in the South and in Iowa.

Land Tenancy Reform in Ethiopia: A Retrospective Analysis

Abstract: Purpose and Summary The purpose of this article is to examine the reasons why reform of the system of land tenure in Ethiopia was considered necessary, to consider the probable efficacy of one proposed land tenancy act in resolving difficulties raised by the system of tenure, and to review the possible alternatives to the land tenancy proposal. It is found that there is strong reason for believing that the reform proposed and backed by donors and foreign experts, were it to have been enacted, could not have been enforced. In the short run, the needed skills, funds, and institutions were not available. In the long run, the reform set up incentives for the major participants in tenancy reform to evade the conditions of the reform. Further, if the reform had been enforced, it might well have worked counter to its own ends. It is notable that the potential effects of the reforms were not rigorously studied and that most effort was expended in the analysis of the defects of the then-prevailing system of tenure. An analysis of the probable impact of the tenancy reform leads to a highly unfavorable prognosis, but there was a general failure of academics, consultants, and Ethiopian bureaucrats to consider them.1 The analysis

Exploitation and interrelated tenancy and credit transactions.

Abstract: It is by now generally admitted that rural markets are often imperfect and moveover, transactions in two or more markets are interlinked. Interlocking of markets is supposed to take place when there is a simultaneous trade in more than one commodity or service between the same pair of individuals and this linking of trade in different commodities or services is found to be essential because delinking is either not feasible or too costly.1 Thus, for example, delinking may be impossible if the market for some commodity or service exists only in conjunction with other markets, or if one of the parties has sufficient market power to insist on linking.2 One of the most reported forms of interlinking is the simultaneous trading in the land lease and credit markets. The ^landowner is observed to provide consumption and/or production loans to his tenant. It the context of imperfect capital markets this may be because a tenant lacking suitable collateral may find in his landlord the only source of credit while the landlord may be willing to provide credit to his tenant because he is better informed about his tenant's loan repayment capacity and also because he can accept collaterals which are not acceptable to other sources of credit, for example the standing crops on leased-in land or the tenant's labour, etc. Share-cropping is another instance of interlinking. In such a tenancy contract land is supplied by the landlord while the tenant supplies the labour. A possible rationale for this arrangement could be that by renting out land the landlord is essentially buying the labour of the entire family of the tenant including that of the women and children of the

Tenancy by the entireties: a matrimonial regime ignored

Abstract: In light of widespread dissatisfaction regarding methods of dividing family property, this article considers the many reform proposals regarding classification of the family home. Recognizing that a majority of proposals call for some kind of joint ownership, it focuses on the often overlooked classification of tenancy by the entireties and compares it to tenancies in common and the favoured joint tenancy. It also examines how tenancies by the entirety satisfy the current reform objectives according to the doctrines of severability and partition, though this form of tenancy has received little serious consideration.