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- Title
Multi-Task Sharecropping Contracts: the Italian Mezzadria.
- Authors
Luporini, Annalisa; Parigi, Bruno
- Abstract
The article uses multi-task principal-agent methodology to study a sharecropping contract which is pervasive in central Italy. It is proposed that the complementarities in multi-task sharecropping that were strengths when the environment was stable became weaknesses when the environment changed. Both the intensified contacts with the market and the changes of the agricultural prices generated a need to reallocate tenants' effort among the several crops. However, since sharecropping was designed mainly to satisfy self-sustenance, it became an obstacle to the greater specialization that market signals demanded. Marxist historians have pointed to the increase in market interaction as one (among many) cause of the crisis of the sharecropping system. They argue that, because the system did not provide the landlord with adequate incentives to make the appropriate amount of investment, increased market interactions only led to a stronger exploitation of the tenants. This study points instead to the importance of technological and insurance spillovers between the different crops in limiting the reallocation of effort as the environment changes.
- Subjects
ITALY; SHARECROPPING; CONTRACTS; FARM income; METHODOLOGY; AGRICULTURAL prices
- Publication
Economica, 1996, Vol 63, Issue 251, p445
- ISSN
0013-0427
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/2555016