Showing papers on "Leasehold estate published in 1986"

Agricultural Development and Tenancy Disputes in Japan, 1870-1940

Abstract: Richard Smethurst shows that the growth of a rural market economy did not impoverish the Japanese farmer. Instead, it led to a general increase in rural prosperity. Originally published in 1986. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Contracts, resource use and productivity in sharecropping

Abstract: This article identifies the contractual terms in sharecropping that result in efficient use of resources. Evidence is then presented from Pakistan to comment on the manner in which landlords ensure that sharecroppers fulfil the terms. It is shown that landlords in general specify contract terms that encourage sharecroppers to adopt new techniques of production. Productivity comparisons are also made for farms under different tenancy contracts to conclude that share‐cropping tenancies do not appear to result in output loss even when technology is changing.

Community and Market in Contract Choice: The Jeepney in the Philippines

Abstract: Economic development is usually associated with a transformation from traditional economic institutions based on local community ties to modern institutions based on wide, impersonal markets. An often-cited example is the shift from crop-sharing to leasehold tenancy. In the past, it was commonly considered that sharecropping was inefficient in achieving optimal resource allocations because it reduced tenants' incentives to apply their own labor as well as other current inputs and that the conversion of sharecroppers to leaseholders or owner operators represented a precondition of modern agricultural development.' Indeed, land-tenure reform programs that rule out the practice of sharecropping have been advocated widely and adopted in some developing countries.2 This view, based on the well-known Marshallian theorem, has been demolished recently by the new land-tenure economics or, more broadly, the theory of contract choice started by Cheung and elaborated by Newbery, Stiglitz, and others.3 It has now been established that the actual contract choice depends on risk and transaction costs, without which both the share and leasehold contracts can achieve Pareto optimality. On the other hand, historically, in the course of urban industrial development in Western Europe and Japan, the cropsharing contract was replaced by the leasehold contract in land tenure, while the piece-rate contract was replaced by the time-rate contract in labor employment. Such observations interpreted in the light of the

Retail Leasehold Interests: A Contingent Claim Analysis

Abstract: This paper develops a contingent claim model to analyze certain aspects of retail leasehold contracts. The approach allows for the explicit consideration of risk without any ad hoc risk adjustment. Both “straight” leases and “percentage” leases are examined with the value of sales as the underlying asset. Each lease value is expressed as a combination of options on sales. The effects of the lease value's determinants and equilibrium risk measurements are also analyzed.

Tenancy in Colonial Pennsylvania: The Case of Chester County

Abstract: N I755, Philadelphia land agents William and Thomas Lightfoot advised their London-based principals that "it can answer no good purpose to let land on lease in Pennsylvania" because, as long as land was cheap, "scarcely any people of circumstances or indeed good capacities will become tenants," and those who did were such "as injure the land and are unable to pay their rent." In I782, in an open letter to "those who would remove to America," Benjamin Franklin pointed out that the country had "few great Proprietors of the Soil and few Tenants; most People cultivate their own Lands, or follow some Handicraft or Merchandise." He assured prospective immigrants that they would not be forced into perpetual tenancy and poverty under harsh and arbitrary landlords. Instead, they would rise "from the poor Condition wherein they were born" and as independent freemen would live in "general happy Mediocrity."1 The myth that almost all eighteenth-century American freemen owned land persisted well into the twentieth century. Indeed, there seemed little cause to challenge it. Tenants were rarely identified as such in public records, and when they were, it was seldom in a manner that would draw attention to tenancy as an institution important for understanding early American society. But in recent years historians have subjected these

Women in the Estate Sector of Malawi: The Tea and Tobacco Industries

Abstract: Working paper on sex discrimination, the economic role and agricultural employment of rural women as plantation worker in Malawi. Examines labour force participation of women workers as seasonal workers or in part-time employment, unpaid work of married women and homemakers on tea and tobacco plantations. Discusses wage structures, working conditions, living conditions, the role of the traditional family structures and tenancy. Bibliography and statistical tables.

Relationship between land tenure and soil productivity

Abstract: Renting of agricultural land is gaining in importance in Canada. The impact of rental on soil conservation and on long-term soil productivity was examined in central southwestern Ontario. Prevailing leasing contracts were short-term, with a minimum of contractual obligations on both parties. A difference in soil management practices was found between owner-operated land and rented land. Both recurrent and nonrecurrent practices upgrading the soil were carried out to a lesser extent on rented than on owner-operated land, while the quality of the rented land was in fact lower and in greater need of ameliorative practices. This resulted in a difference in grain corn yield; the lower yield being obtained from rented land. Key words: Land tenure, tenancy, rental contract, soil conservation, soil productivity, soil quality

The valuation of short leasehold investments

Abstract: The valuation of short leasehold investments has become a subject of debate over the past few years. Concern has been centred upon the suitability of conventional valuation techniques, the unique nature of the short leasehold investment and its affinity with gilts rather than the mainstream property market. This paper is the result of a seminar at ISVA headquarters in late 1985 to which Butler and Baum contributed, and examines the nature of short leaseholds as investments, the market for short leaseholds, characteristics affecting values and both principles and practice of short leasehold investment valuations. Three case studies are presented in illustration.

The land sales act of 1902 as a means of norwegianization

Abstract: From the second half of the 19th century onwards the land sales legislation was used by the Norwegian state authorities as a means in the nationality policy in northernmost Norway. The Land Sales Legislation of 1902 has hitherto been considered as having had its main influence in prohibiting the sale of land to people lacking proficiency in Norwegian. This paper places this language clause in a wider context, viz the leasehold system, and proposes to study the leasehold system as a whole in order to grasp the influence of the legislation on ethnic relations in Finnmark.

Institutional and Secondary Landlordism in the Pearl River Delta, 1600-1949:

Abstract: The structure of Chinese rural society, the causes of the agricultural depression during the Republican era, and their relationship to the Communist Revolution of 1949 have long been subjects of ideological and scholarly debate. There are two principal schools of interpretation: the distributionist school, with which many Chinese nationalists and Marxists may be identified, and the technologist school, into which many Western scholars fall.' For the distributionists, Chinese rural society was characterized by maldistribution of wealth, the symptoms of which were the increasing concentration of landownership and growing tenancy, and the concomitant exploitation of tenants by landlords through rack rents, usurious interest rates, and price manipulations. The implication was that drastic land reform or social revolution was necessary to end China's rural crisis.

THE IMPLIED MARKETING COVENANT IN OIL AND GAS LEASES: SOME NEEDED CHANGES FOR THE 80's

Abstract: Anticipating an increase in litigation on the lessee's duty to market natural gas which has been discovered on the leasehold, the authors review the lessee's obligation under the implied covenant to market. In light of the increased pressures on the lessee by federal regulations and the downturn in demand, any reevaluation of the nearly 100-year-old covenant should focus on the standard of conduct and standard of proof by which a lessee's marketing activities are to be judged; i.e., a review of the continued viability of the reasonably prudent operator standard. A review of case law finds that in those instances where the parties to a lease share a common interest in production, the lessee should be allowed to exercise his business judgement without fear of second guessing by judge or jury. The increase of the standard of proof to a clear and convincing evidence level achieves an acceptable compromise.

Farm Size, Tenancy Status and Technology: Production Relationships in Rural Bangladesh

Abstract: The paper focuses on the estimation of aggregate revenue functions to represent the production technology facing peasant households in a multi-crop economy. Special emphasis is placed on the role of farm size and the tenancy status of the farm operator. The results suggest that farm size and tenancy status have little impact on the representation of the aggregate production technology in the surveyed villages.

The Fifteenth Century: Peasant Landholding and Struggles

Abstract: Brenner suggests that the crucial difference between English and French agrarian development after the feudal crisis lay in the fact that, whereas in England peasant landholding was eroded away and land released for capitalist development, in France there was consolidation of peasant proprietorship.1 In the latter, the state confirmed the heritability of peasant tenure (so that landlords could not appropriate vacant peasant land into their demesnes), and began to organise peasant communities as a tax base. In England, landlords were able to appropriate vacant holdings and thereby transfer much land from the customary to the expanding leasehold sector, preventing the dorninance of peasant freehold in the agrarian economy. The increasingly commercially oriented landed class was also often able to transform customary land into leasehold by raising rents and entry fines. Meanwhile peasant landtenure in the form of copyhold became increasingly insecure, so that overall the peasant sector was of decreasing significance.

Selection of Public Housing Tenants: On the Feasibility of Using an Objective Screening Procedure1

Abstract: Problems facing public housing authorities can be addressed through two basic alternative perspectives. One assumes that difficulties result from the behavior of certain “problem” tenants and recommends careful screening of applicants. This perspective influenced a housing authority in a small city, which desired a means to select tenants who would be less likely to exhibit problems. Information in the records of the housing authority was analyzed to identify tenant characteristics predictive of problem tenancy. The findings indicated that these problems were not as widespread as believed by management and that tenant characteristics were not strongly predictive of problems. Application of this approach would probably not constitute a significant improvement over present practices and might allow unfair discrimination to occur unwittingly. Instead, the most feasible strategy to reduce the impact of problem tenancy, even within a single locale, seems to be to focus on management practices and to address the more fundamental causes of tenant difficulties.