IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/iaae15/211900.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Incentives and Moral Hazard: Plot Level Productivity of Factory-Operated and Outgrower-Operated Sugarcane Production in Ethiopia

Author

Listed:
  • Wedimu, Mengistu A.
  • Henningsen, Arne
  • Czekaj, Tomasz G.

Abstract

We investigate the rather unique contractual arrangement between one of the largest sugar factories in Ethiopia and its adjacent outgrower associations. The only significant difference between the sugarcane production on the factory-operated plantation and on the outgrower-operated plots is the remuneration system and thus, the incentives to the workers. We compare the productivity of these two production models based on a new cross-sectional plot-level data set. As sugarcane production depends on various exogenous factors that are measured as categorical variables (e.g. soil type, cane variety, etc.), we estimate the production function by a nonparametric kernel regression method that takes into account both continuous and categorical explanatory variables without assuming a functional form. Our results show that outgrower-operated plots have−ceteris paribus−a significantly higher productivity than factory-operated plots, which can be explained by outgrowers having stronger incentives to put more effort in their work than the employees of the sugar factory.

Suggested Citation

  • Wedimu, Mengistu A. & Henningsen, Arne & Czekaj, Tomasz G., 2015. "Incentives and Moral Hazard: Plot Level Productivity of Factory-Operated and Outgrower-Operated Sugarcane Production in Ethiopia," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 211900, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:iaae15:211900
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.211900
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/211900/files/Wendimu-Incentives%20and%20Moral%20Hazard-1037.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.211900?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kostka, Genia & Polzin, Christine & Scharrer, Jenny, 2009. "The future of sugar cane in (the) People's Republic of China and India - Supply constraints and expansion potential," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 86(Supplemen), pages 100-107, November.
    2. Ayal Kimhi, 2006. "Plot size and maize productivity in Zambia: is there an inverse relationship?," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 35(1), pages 1-9, July.
    3. Paarsch, Harry J & Shearer, Bruce, 2000. "Piece Rates, Fixed Wages, and Incentive Effects: Statistical Evidence from Payroll Records," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 41(1), pages 59-92, February.
    4. Tomasz Gerard Czekaj & Arne Henningsen, 2012. "Comparing Parametric and Nonparametric Regression Methods for Panel Data: the Optimal Size of Polish Crop Farms," IFRO Working Paper 2012/12, University of Copenhagen, Department of Food and Resource Economics.
    5. Barrett, Christopher B., 1996. "On price risk and the inverse farm size-productivity relationship," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 193-215, December.
    6. Peter Hall & Jeff Racine & Qi Li, 2004. "Cross-Validation and the Estimation of Conditional Probability Densities," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 99, pages 1015-1026, December.
    7. Amartya K. Sen, 1966. "Peasants and Dualism with or without Surplus Labor," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 74(5), pages 425-425.
    8. Klaus Deininger & Derek Byerlee & Jonathan Lindsay & Andrew Norton & Harris Selod & Mercedes Stickler, 2011. "Rising Global Interest in Farmland : Can it Yield Sustainable and Equitable Benefits?," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2263, December.
    9. Marijn Verschelde & Marijke D’Haese & Glenn Rayp & Ellen Vandamme, 2013. "Challenging Small-Scale Farming: A Non-Parametric Analysis of the (Inverse) Relationship Between Farm Productivity and Farm Size in Burundi," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(2), pages 319-342, June.
    10. Barrett, Christopher B. & Bachke, Maren E. & Bellemare, Marc F. & Michelson, Hope C. & Narayanan, Sudha & Walker, Thomas F., 2012. "Smallholder Participation in Contract Farming: Comparative Evidence from Five Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 715-730.
    11. Frisvold, George B., 1994. "Does supervision matter? Some hypothesis tests using Indian farm-level data," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 217-238, April.
    12. Barrett, Christopher B. & Bellemare, Marc F. & Hou, Janet Y., 2010. "Reconsidering Conventional Explanations of the Inverse Productivity-Size Relationship," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 88-97, January.
    13. Warning, Matthew & Key, Nigel, 2002. "The Social Performance and Distributional Consequences of Contract Farming: An Equilibrium Analysis of the Arachide de Bouche Program in Senegal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 255-263, February.
    14. Glover, David J., 1987. "Increasing the benefits to smallholders from contract farming: Problems for farmers' organizations and policy makers," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 441-448, April.
    15. Bhalla, Surjit S & Roy, Prannoy L, 1988. "Mis-specification in Farm Productivity Analysis: The Role of Land Quality," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 40(1), pages 55-73, March.
    16. Eswaran, Mukesh & Kotwal, Ashok, 1986. "Access to Capital and Agrarian Production Organisation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 96(382), pages 482-498, June.
    17. Racine, Jeff & Li, Qi, 2004. "Nonparametric estimation of regression functions with both categorical and continuous data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 119(1), pages 99-130, March.
    18. Mahadevan, Renuka, 2007. "Fiji's Sugar Woes: The Challenge of the Land Tenure System, Ethnicity and the Erosion of EU Sugar Preferences," 2007 Conference (51st), February 13-16, 2007, Queenstown, New Zealand 10419, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    19. Minot, Nicholas, 1986. "Contract Farming and Its Effect on Small Farmers in Less Developed Countries," Food Security International Development Working Papers 54740, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    20. Benjamin, Dwayne, 1995. "Can unobserved land quality explain the inverse productivity relationship?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 51-84, February.
    21. Harry J. Paarsch & Bruce S. Shearer, 1999. "The Response of Worker Effort to Piece Rates: Evidence from the British Columbia Tree-Planting Industry," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 34(4), pages 643-667.
    22. Bolwig, Simon & Gibbon, Peter & Jones, Sam, 2009. "The Economics of Smallholder Organic Contract Farming in Tropical Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 1094-1104, June.
    23. Carletto, Calogero & Savastano, Sara & Zezza, Alberto, 2013. "Fact or artifact: The impact of measurement errors on the farm size–productivity relationship," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 254-261.
    24. Racine, Jeff, 1997. "Consistent Significance Testing for Nonparametric Regression," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 15(3), pages 369-378, July.
    25. Racine, Jeffrey S., 2008. "Nonparametric Econometrics: A Primer," Foundations and Trends(R) in Econometrics, now publishers, vol. 3(1), pages 1-88, March.
    26. Msuya, Elibariki & Ashimogo, Gasper, 2005. "Estimation of Technical Efficiency in Tanzanian Sugarcane Production: A Case Study of Mtibwa Sugar Estate Outgrowers Scheme," MPRA Paper 3747, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    27. Bellemare, Marc F., 2012. "As You Sow, So Shall You Reap: The Welfare Impacts of Contract Farming," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(7), pages 1418-1434.
    28. Qi Li & Jeffrey Scott Racine, 2006. "Nonparametric Econometrics: Theory and Practice," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 8355.
    29. Key, Nigel & Runsten, David, 1999. "Contract Farming, Smallholders, and Rural Development in Latin America: The Organization of Agroprocessing Firms and the Scale of Outgrower Production," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 381-401, February.
    30. Li, Qi & Racine, Jeff, 2003. "Nonparametric estimation of distributions with categorical and continuous data," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 266-292, August.
    31. Ross, Stephen A, 1973. "The Economic Theory of Agency: The Principal's Problem," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(2), pages 134-139, May.
    32. Arne Henningsen & Christian Henning, 2009. "Imposing regional monotonicity on translog stochastic production frontiers with a simple three-step procedure," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 32(3), pages 217-229, December.
    33. Lamb, Russell L., 2003. "Inverse productivity: land quality, labor markets, and measurement error," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 71-95, June.
    34. Pang Du & Christopher F. Parmeter & Jeffrey S. Racine, 2012. "Nonparametric Kernel Regression with Multiple Predictors and Multiple Shape Constraints," Department of Economics Working Papers 2012-08, McMaster University.
    35. Hayfield, Tristen & Racine, Jeffrey S., 2008. "Nonparametric Econometrics: The np Package," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 27(i05).
    36. Mabro, Robert, 1971. "Employment and Wages in Dual Agriculture," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 23(3), pages 401-417, November.
    37. Lipton, Michael, 2010. "From Policy Aims and Small-farm Characteristics to Farm Science Needs," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(10), pages 1399-1412, October.
    38. Nadia Belhaj Hassine & Magda Kandil, 2009. "Trade liberalisation, agricultural productivity and poverty in the Mediterranean region," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 36(1), pages 1-29, March.
    39. Collier, Paul, 1983. "Malfunctioning of African Rural Factor Markets: Theory and a Kenyan Example," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 45(2), pages 141-172, May.
    40. Christopher Parmeter & Kai Sun & Daniel Henderson & Subal Kumbhakar, 2014. "Estimation and inference under economic restrictions," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 111-129, February.
    41. Collier, Paul & Dercon, Stefan, 2014. "African Agriculture in 50Years: Smallholders in a Rapidly Changing World?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 92-101.
    42. Heltberg, Rasmus, 1998. "Rural market imperfections and the farm size-- productivity relationship: Evidence from Pakistan," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 26(10), pages 1807-1826, October.
    43. Jeffery Racine & Jeffrey Hart & Qi Li, 2006. "Testing the Significance of Categorical Predictor Variables in Nonparametric Regression Models," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(4), pages 523-544.
    44. Feder, Gershon, 1985. "The relation between farm size and farm productivity : The role of family labor, supervision and credit constraints," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2-3), pages 297-313, August.
    45. Harris, Milton & Raviv, Artur, 1979. "Optimal incentive contracts with imperfect information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 231-259, April.
    46. Allen, Douglas & Lueck, Dean, 1992. "Contract Choice in Modern Agriculture: Cash Rent versus Cropshare," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(2), pages 397-426, October.
    47. Jeffrey Racine, 2008. "Nonparametric econometrics: a primer (in Russian)," Quantile, Quantile, issue 4, pages 7-56, March.
    48. Assuncao, Juliano J. & Ghatak, Maitreesh, 2003. "Can unobserved heterogeneity in farmer ability explain the inverse relationship between farm size and productivity," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 80(2), pages 189-194, August.
    49. Clifford M. Hurvich & Jeffrey S. Simonoff & Chih‐Ling Tsai, 1998. "Smoothing parameter selection in nonparametric regression using an improved Akaike information criterion," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 60(2), pages 271-293.
    50. Cornia, Giovanni Andrea, 1985. "Farm size, land yields and the agricultural production function: An analysis for fifteen developing countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 513-534, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Meilin Ma & Richard J. Sexton, 2021. "Modern agricultural value chains and the future of smallholder farming systems," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 52(4), pages 591-606, July.
    2. Wendimu, Mengistu Assefa & Henningsen, Arne & Gibbon, Peter, 2016. "Sugarcane Outgrowers in Ethiopia: “Forced” to Remain Poor?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 84-97.
    3. Moseki, Ofentse & Murray-Hudson, Michael & Kashe, Keotshephile, 2019. "Crop water and irrigation requirements of Jatropha curcas L. in semi-arid conditions of Botswana: applying the CROPWAT model," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 225(C).
    4. Bellemare, Marc F. & Bloem, Jeffrey R., 2018. "Does contract farming improve welfare? A review," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 259-271.
    5. Jenifer Piesse & Beatrice Conradie & Colin Thirtle & Nick Vink, 2018. "Efficiency in wine grape production: comparing long†established and newly developed regions of South Africa," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 49(2), pages 203-212, March.
    6. Meilin Ma & Jessie Lin & Richard J. Sexton, 2022. "The Transition from Small to Large Farms in Developing Economies: A Welfare Analysis," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 104(1), pages 111-133, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ali, Daniel Ayalew & Deininger, Klaus, 2014. "Is there a farm-size productivity relationship in African agriculture ? evidence from Rwanda," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6770, The World Bank.
    2. Desiere, Sam & Jolliffe, Dean, 2018. "Land productivity and plot size: Is measurement error driving the inverse relationship?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 84-98.
    3. Deininger, Klaus & Jin, Songqing & Liu, Yanyan & Singh, Sudhir, 2015. "Labor Market Performance and the Farm Size-Productivity Relationship in Rural India," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 212720, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. Marijn Verschelde & Marijke D’Haese & Glenn Rayp & Ellen Vandamme, 2013. "Challenging Small-Scale Farming: A Non-Parametric Analysis of the (Inverse) Relationship Between Farm Productivity and Farm Size in Burundi," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(2), pages 319-342, June.
    5. Omotilewa, Oluwatoba J. & Jayne, T.S. & Muyanga, Milu & Aromolaran, Adebayo B. & Liverpool-Tasie, Lenis Saweda O. & Awokuse, Titus, 2021. "A revisit of farm size and productivity: Empirical evidence from a wide range of farm sizes in Nigeria," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    6. Klaus Deininger & Songqing Jin & Yanyan Liu & Sudhir K Singh, 2016. "Can Labor Market Imperfections Explain Changes in the Inverse Farm Size–Productivity Relationship? Longitudinal Evidence from Rural India," Working Papers id:10987, eSocialSciences.
    7. Tomasz Gerard Czekaj & Arne Henningsen, 2012. "Comparing Parametric and Nonparametric Regression Methods for Panel Data: the Optimal Size of Polish Crop Farms," IFRO Working Paper 2012/12, University of Copenhagen, Department of Food and Resource Economics.
    8. Steven Helfand & Matthew Taylor, 2018. "The Inverse Relationship between Farm Size and Productivity: Refocusing the Debate," Working Papers 201811, University of California at Riverside, Department of Economics.
    9. IFPRI International Food Policy Research Institute, 2016. "Can Labour Market Imperfections Explain Changes in the Inverse Farm Size-Productivity Relationship?: Longitudinal Evidence from Rural India," Working Papers id:11007, eSocialSciences.
    10. Klaus Deininger & Songqing Jin & Yanyan Liu & Sudhir K. Singh, 2018. "Can Labor-Market Imperfections Explain Changes in the Inverse Farm Size–Productivity Relationship? Longitudinal Evidence from Rural India," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 94(2), pages 239-258.
    11. Fang Xia & Lingling Hou & Songqing Jin & Dongqing Li, 2020. "Land size and productivity in the livestock sector: evidence from pastoral areas in China," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 64(3), pages 867-888, July.
    12. Kilic, Talip & Zezza, Alberto & Carletto, Calogero & Savastano, Sara, 2017. "Missing(ness) in Action: Selectivity Bias in GPS-Based Land Area Measurements," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 143-157.
    13. Larson,Donald F. & Muraoka,Rie & Otsuka,Keijiro, 2016. "On the central role of small farms in African rural development strategies," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7710, The World Bank.
    14. Donald F. Larson & Keijiro Otsuka & Tomoya Matsumoto & Talip Kilic, 2014. "Should African rural development strategies depend on smallholder farms? An exploration of the inverse-productivity hypothesis," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 45(3), pages 355-367, May.
    15. Holden, Stein & Fisher, Monica, 2013. "Can area measurement error explain the inverse farm size productivity relationship?," CLTS Working Papers 12/13, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Centre for Land Tenure Studies, revised 10 Oct 2019.
    16. Holden, Stein T. & Ali, Daniel & Deininger, Klaus & Hilhorst, Thea, 2016. "A Land Tenure Module for LSMS," CLTS Working Papers 1/16, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Centre for Land Tenure Studies, revised 16 Oct 2019.
    17. Aragón, Fernando M. & Restuccia, Diego & Rud, Juan Pablo, 2022. "Are small farms really more productive than large farms?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    18. Klasen, Stephan & Reimers, Malte, 2017. "Looking at Pro-Poor Growth from an Agricultural Perspective," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 147-168.
    19. Mensah, Edouard R. & Kostandini, Genti, 2020. "The inverse farm size-productivity relationship under land size mis-measurement and in the presence of weather and price risks: Panel data evidence from Uganda," 2020 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, Kansas City, Missouri 304477, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    20. Helfand, Steven M. & Taylor, Matthew P.H., 2021. "The inverse relationship between farm size and productivity: Refocusing the debate," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Crop Production/Industries; International Development;

    JEL classification:

    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • Q12 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets
    • Q15 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Land Ownership and Tenure; Land Reform; Land Use; Irrigation; Agriculture and Environment

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:iaae15:211900. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iaaeeea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.