IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/chm/wpaper/wp2006-6.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The effects of agrarian contracts of a governmental intervention into bonded labor in the western terai of Nepal

Author

Listed:
  • Magnus Hatlebakk

Abstract

We study an effective intervention into a specific form of bonded labor. The intervention led to a shift in agrarian contracts, from bonded labor to sharecropping. By comparing the pre- and post-liberation contracts we evaluate theoretical models of agrarian contracts. We suggest three mechanisms that jointly explain why landlords offered bonded labor contracts pre-liberation. One mechanism we apply to define bonded labor in contrast to tied labor. The mechanism, where the outside option as casual labor is endogenously determined by the choice of long-term contract, implies a trade-off for the landlord between efficiency and redistribution of surplus.

Suggested Citation

  • Magnus Hatlebakk, 2006. "The effects of agrarian contracts of a governmental intervention into bonded labor in the western terai of Nepal," CMI Working Papers WP 2006: 6, CMI (Chr. Michelsen Institute), Bergen, Norway.
    • Handle: RePEc:chm:wpaper:wp2006-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cmi.no/publications/file/2129-the-effects-on-agrarian-contracts.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1974. "Incentives and Risk Sharing in Sharecropping," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 41(2), pages 219-255.
    2. Pranab K. Bardhan, 1983. "Labor-tying in a Poor Agrarian Economy: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(3), pages 501-514.
    3. Genicot, Garance, 2002. "Bonded labor and serfdom: a paradox of voluntary choice," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 101-127, February.
    4. Schaffner, Julie Anderson, 1995. "Attached farm labor, limited horizons and servility," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 241-270, August.
    5. Hatlebakk, Magnus, 2002. "A new and robust subgame perfect equilibrium in a model of triadic power relations," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 225-232, June.
    6. Shetty, Sudhir, 1988. "Limited liability, wealth differences and tenancy contracts in agrarian economies," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 1-22, July.
    7. Hatlebakk, Magnus, 2004. "Attached Labor in Nepal: A Field-Study of Landlord-Labor Relations that are Misrepresented in the Nepal-LSMS data," Working Papers in Economics 02/04, University of Bergen, Department of Economics.
    8. Bardhan, Pranab K, 1980. "Interlocking Factor Markets and Agrarian Development: A Review of Issues," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 32(1), pages 82-98, March.
    9. Allen, Franklin, 1985. "On the Fixed Nature of Sharecropping Contracts," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 95(377), pages 30-48, March.
    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. Koolwal, Gayatri B., 2007. "Son Preference and Child Labor in Nepal: The Household Impact of Sending Girls to Work," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 881-903, May.
    2. Espen Villanger, 2006. "Is Bonded Labor Voluntary? Evidence from the Liberation of the Kamaiyas in the Far-Western Region of Nepal," CMI Working Papers 16, CMI (Chr. Michelsen Institute), Bergen, Norway.
    3. Espen Villanger, 2006. "Is bonded labor voluntary? A framework against forced work," CMI Working Papers WP 2006: 7, CMI (Chr. Michelsen Institute), Bergen, Norway.

    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. Espen Villanger, 2006. "Is bonded labor voluntary? A framework against forced work," CMI Working Papers WP 2006: 7, CMI (Chr. Michelsen Institute), Bergen, Norway.
    2. Espen Villanger, 2006. "Is Bonded Labor Voluntary? Evidence from the Liberation of the Kamaiyas in the Far-Western Region of Nepal," CMI Working Papers 16, CMI (Chr. Michelsen Institute), Bergen, Norway.
    3. Ananish Chaudhuri & Pushkar Maitra, 1997. "Determinants of Land Tenure Contracts; Theory and Evidence from Rural India," Departmental Working Papers 199710, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
    4. Conning, Jonathan & Udry, Christopher, 2007. "Rural Financial Markets in Developing Countries," Handbook of Agricultural Economics, in: Robert Evenson & Prabhu Pingali (ed.), Handbook of Agricultural Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 56, pages 2857-2908, Elsevier.
    5. Tarp, Finn, 2003. "Udviklingsbistanden i perspektiv," Nationaløkonomisk tidsskrift, Nationaløkonomisk Forening, vol. 2003(1), pages 164-186.
    6. Laurence Amblard & J.P. Colin, 2009. "Reverse tenancy in Romania: Actors' rationales and equity outcomes," Post-Print hal-00454533, HAL.
    7. Ananish Chaudhuri, 1997. "A Dynamic Model of Contractual Choice in Tenancy," Departmental Working Papers 199711, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
    8. Ray, Tridip, 1999. "Share tenancy as strategic delegation," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 45-60, February.
    9. Benin, Samuel & Place, Frank & Nkonya, Ephraim M. & Pender, John L., 2006. "Land Markets and Agricultural Land Use Efficiency and Sustainability: Evidence from East Africa," 2006 Annual Meeting, August 12-18, 2006, Queensland, Australia 25645, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    10. Ananish Chaudhuri & Pushkar Maitra, 2001. "Tenant characteristics and the choice of tenurial contracts in rural India," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(2), pages 169-181.
    11. Cameron, Alistair & Oak, Mandar & Shan, Yaping, 2021. "Peer monitoring and Islamic microfinance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 337-358.
    12. Stanley, Denise L., 2002. "Efficiency and equity tradeoffs: incentive-compatible contracts revisited," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 309-331, April.
    13. Yutaka ARIMOTO & Tetsuji OKAZAKI & Masaki NAKABAYASHI, 2010. "Agrarian Land Tenancy In Prewar Japan: Contract Choice And Implications On Productivity," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 48(3), pages 293-318, September.
    14. Ligon, Ethan, 1994. "Risk-Sharing Under Varying Information Regimes: Theory and Measurement in Village Economies," CUDARE Working Papers 201473, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    15. M. A. Taslim, 1992. "A Survey of Theories of Cropshare Tenancy," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 68(3), pages 254-275, September.
    16. Bidisha, Sayema Haque & Hossain, Md. Amzad & Alam, Rubaiyat & Hasan, Md. Mehedi, 2018. "Credit, tenancy choice and agricultural efficiency: Evidence from the northern region of Bangladesh," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 22-32.
    17. Oriana Bandiera, 1999. "On the Structure of Tenancy contracts: Theory and Evidence fron 19th Century Rural Sicily," STICERD - Development Economics Papers - From 2008 this series has been superseded by Economic Organisation and Public Policy Discussion Papers 19, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    18. Kaushik Basu, 1989. "Limited Liability and the Existence of Share Tenancy," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-1989-061, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    19. Xiao Yu Wang, 2014. "Risk Sorting, Portfolio Choice, and Endogenous Informal Insurance," NBER Working Papers 20429, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Macchiavello, Rocco & Casaburi, Lorenzo, 2015. "Firm and Market Response to Saving Constraints: Evidence from the Kenyan Dairy Industry," CEPR Discussion Papers 10952, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Tied labor Agrarian institutions Nepal;

    JEL classification:

    • J43 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Agricultural Labor Markets
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

    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:chm:wpaper:wp2006-6. 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: Robert Sjursen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cmiiino.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.