The Economic Theory of Agrarian Institutions (Clarendon Paperbacks)

These specially commissioned essays apply new analytical methods to study the origins, maintenance, and adaptation of agrarian institutions in a variety of regions and cultures. The contributors, including J.E. Stiglitz, T.N. Srinivasan, Clive Bell, Louis Putterman, H. Binswanger, D. Newbery, and Alain de Janvry, focus on agrarian relations and rural development. Contents......Page 6 Contributors......Page 9 I. GENERAL INTRODUCTION......Page 10 1. Alternative Approaches to the Theory of Institutions in Economic Development......Page 12 2. Rational Peasants, Efficient Institutions, and a Theory of Rural Organization: Methodological Remarks for Development Economics......Page 27 II. LAND AND LABOUR......Page 40 3. Theories of Sharecropping......Page 42 4. A Comparison of Principal–Agent and Bargaining Solutions: The Case of Tenancy Contracts......Page 82 5. Contracts with Eviction in Infinitely Repeated Principal–Agent Relationships......Page 102 6. Production Relations in Semi-arid African Agriculture......Page 131 III. CREDIT AND INTERLINKED TRANSACTIONS......Page 154 7. Rural Credit Markets: The Structure of Interest Rates, Exploitation, and Efficiency......Page 156 8. Credit and Agrarian Class Structure......Page 175 9. Credit Rationing, Tenancy, Productivity, and the Dynamics of Inequality......Page 194 10. On Choice among Creditors and Bonded Labour Contracts......Page 212 11.Some Aspects of Linked Product and Credit Market Contracts among Risk-neutral Agents......Page 230 12. A Note on Interlinked Rural Economic Arrangements......Page 246 13. Interlinkages and the Pattern of Competition......Page 252 IV. MARKETING AND INSURANCE......Page 274 14. Agricultural Institutions for Insurance and Stabilization......Page 276 15. Peasants' Risk Aversion and the Choice of Marketing Intermediaries and Contracts: A Bargaining Theory of Equilibrium Marketing Contracts......Page 306 V. CO-OPERATIVES, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE STATE......Page 326 16. Agricultural Producer Co-operatives......Page 328 17. Institutional Analysis of Credit Co-operatives......Page 349 18. Agrarian Structure, Technological Innovations, and the State......Page 365 Bibliography......Page 392 E......Page 414 M......Page 415 S......Page 416 Z......Page 417 This volume breaks new ground in the economic theory of institutions. The contributors show how some of the tools of advanced economic theory can usefully contribute to an understanding of how institutions operate. They show how sound theoretical analysis can in fact enable economists to reach conclusions which will help practitioners avoid many pitfalls in the formation and implementation of development policies, both within individual countries and in the context of international aid. This volume contains a series of essays which aims to show how some of the tools of advanced economic theory can usefully contribute to an understanding of how institutions operate. In particular, such techniques can be applied to the study of institutions within poor agrarian economies.