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The Economic Theory of Agrarian Institutions - Oxford Scholarship Online
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The Economic Theory of Agrarian Institutions

Pranab Bardhan

Abstract

In this book, the authors theorize about the rationale and consequences of some economic institutions and contractual arrangements that are particularly predominant in poor agrarian economies. The models illustrate how some of the tools of advanced economic theory can be fruitfully used in understanding the aspects of age‐old agrarian institutions (like sharecropping, labour contracts, interlinked economic arrangements straddling labour, land, credit and product markets, producer and credit cooperatives, risk‐sharing institutions, etc.).

Keywords: adverse selection, agrarian economies, bargaining, bonded labour, contracts, credit rationing, insurance, moral hazard, principal‐agent model, sharecropping

Bibliographic Information

Print publication date: 1991 Print ISBN-13: 9780198287629
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2003 DOI:10.1093/0198287623.001.0001

Authors

Affiliations are at time of print publication.

Pranab Bardhan, editor
University of California, Berkeley
Author Webpage

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Contents

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Front Matter

Title Pages

Preface

Contributors

Part I General Introduction

1. Alternative Approaches to the Theory of Institutions in Economic Development

Pranab Bardhan

2. Rational Peasants, Efficient Institutions, and a Theory of Rural Organization: Methodological Remarks for Development Economics

Joseph E. Stiglitz

Part II Land and Labour

3. Theories of Sharecropping

Nirvikar Singh

4. A Comparison of Principal–Agent and Bargaining Solutions: The Case of Tenancy Contracts

Clive Bell

5. Contracts With Eviction in Infinitely Repeated Principal–Agent Relationships

Bhaskar Dutta, Debraj Ray, and Kunal Sengupta

6. Production Relations in Semi‐Arid African Agriculture

Hans Binswanger, John McIntire, and Chris Udry

Part III Credit and Interlinked Transactions

7. Rural Credit Markets: The Structure of Interest Rates, Exploitation, and Efficiency

Kaushik Basu

8. Credit and Agrarian Class Structure

Mukesh Eswaran and Ashok Kotwal

9. Credit Rationing, Tenancy, Productivity, and the Dynamics of Inequality

Avishay Braverman and Joseph E. Stiglitz

10. On Choice Among Creditors and Bonded Labour Contracts

T. N. Srinivasan

11. Some Aspects of Linked Product and Credit Market Contracts Among Risk‐Neutral Agents

Clive Bell and T. N. Srinivasan

12. A Note on Interlinked Rural Economic Arrangements

Pranab Bardhan

13. Interlinkages and the Pattern of Competition

Debraj Ray and Kunal Sengupta

Part IV Marketing and Insurance

14. Agricultural Institutions for Insurance and Stabilization

David M. Newbery

15. Peasants' Risk Aversion and the Choice of Marketing Intermediaries and Contracts: A Bargaining Theory of Equilibrium Marketing Contracts

Pinhas Zusman

Part V Co‐Operatives, Technology, and the State

16. Agricultural Producer Co‐Operatives

Louis Putterman

17. Institutional Analysis of Credit Co‐Operatives

Avishay Braverman and J. Luis Guasch

18. Agrarian Structure, Technological Innovations, and the State

Alain de Janvry, Elisabeth Sadoulet, and Marcel Fafchamps

End Matter

Bibliography

Index