Editing Sharecropping (section)

==Economic theories of share tenancy==
[[File:Mrs. Handley and some of her children, Walker County, Alabama, 8b35778.jpg | thumb|A sharecropper family in [[Walker County, Alabama|Walker County]], Alabama (c. 1937)]]The theory of share tenancy was long dominated by [[Alfred Marshall]]'s famous footnote in Book VI, Chapter X.14 of [[Principles of Economics (Marshall)|''Principles'']]<ref>{{cite book|author1=Alfred Marshall|title=Principles of Economics|url=http://www.econlib.org/library/Marshall/marP.html|year=1920|edition=8th|
publisher=London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd}}</ref> where he illustrated the inefficiency of agricultural share-contracting. [[Steven N.S. Cheung]] (1969),<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1086/466658|title=Transaction Costs, Risk Aversion, and the Choice of Contractual Arrangements|journal=Journal of Law & Economics|year=1969|first=Steven N S|last=Cheung|volume=12|issue=1|pages=23–42 |s2cid=154860968|url=http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/jlecono12&div=6&id=&page=|access-date=2009-06-14 |url-access=subscription}}</ref>  challenged this view, showing that with sufficient competition and in the absence of transaction costs, share tenancy will be equivalent to competitive labor markets and therefore efficient.<ref>Formalized in {{cite journal|title=Sharecropping, Production Externalities and the Theory of Contracts|journal=American Journal of Agricultural Economics|year=1979|first=James |last=Roumasset|volume=61|issue=4|pages=640–647  |jstor=1239911|doi=10.2307/1239911 }}</ref>

He also showed that in the presence of transaction costs, share-contracting may be preferred to either wage contracts or rent contracts—due to the mitigation of labor shirking and the provision of risk sharing. [[Joseph Stiglitz]] (1974,<ref>{{cite journal|title=Incentives and Risk Sharing in Sharecropping|journal=The Review of Economic Studies|year=1974|first=Joseph|last=Stiglitz|author-link=Joseph Stiglitz|volume=41|issue=2|pages=219–255 j|jstor=2296714|doi=10.2307/2296714|url=http://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d03/d0353.pdf|access-date=2019-07-06|archive-date=2019-04-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190427183920/http://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d03/d0353.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> 1988),<ref>{{cite journal|title=Principal And Agent|journal=Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School – Discussion Paper|year=1988|first=Joseph|last=Stiglitz|author-link=Joseph Stiglitz|issue=12|url=https://ideas.repec.org/p/fth/priwdp/12.html|access-date=2009-06-14 }}</ref>  suggested that if share tenancy is only a labor contract, then it is only pairwise-efficient and that land-to-the-tiller reform would improve social efficiency by removing the necessity for labor contracts in the first place.

Reid (1973),<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1017/S0022050700076476|title=Sharecropping As An Understandable Market Response: The Post-Bellum South|journal=[[The Journal of Economic History]]|date=March 1973|first=Joseph D. Jr. |last=Reid | author-link = Joseph D. Reid|volume=33|issue=1|pages=106–130  |jstor=2117145|s2cid=155056632 }}</ref> Murrel (1983),<ref>{{cite journal|title=The Economics of Sharing: A Transactions Cost Analysis of Contractual Choice in Farming|journal=[[The Bell Journal of Economics]]|date=Spring 1983|first=Peter |last=Murrell|volume=14|issue=1|pages=283–293  |jstor=3003555|doi=10.2307/3003555 }}</ref> Roumasset (1995)<ref>{{cite journal|title=The nature of the agricultural firm |journal=[[Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization]]|date=March 1995|first=James|last=Roumasset|volume=26|issue=2|pages=161–177 |doi= 10.1016/0167-2681(94)00007-2}}</ref>  and Allen and Lueck (2004)<ref>{{cite book | last = Allen | first = Douglas W. |author2=Dean Lueck  | title = The Nature of the Farm: Contracts, Risk, and Organization in Agriculture | publisher = [[MIT Press]] | year = 2004 | pages = 258 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=L2-BwHyuU3QC&q=nature+of+the+farm | isbn = 9780262511858 }}</ref> provided [[transaction cost]] theories of share-contracting, wherein tenancy is more of a partnership than a labor contract and both landlord and tenant provide multiple inputs. It has also been argued that the sharecropping institution can be explained by factors such as [[information asymmetry|informational asymmetry]] (Hallagan, 1978;<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.2307/3003586|title=Self-selection by contractual choice and the theory of sharecropping|journal=Bell Journal of Economics|year=1978|first=William |last=Hallagan|volume=9|issue=2|pages=344–354  |jstor=3003586}}</ref> Allen, 1982;<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.2307/3003473|title=On share contracts and screening|journal=Bell Journal of Economics|year=1982|first=Franklin |last=Allen|volume=13|issue=2|pages=541–547  |jstor=3003473}}</ref> Muthoo, 1998),<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1016/S0304-3878(98)00050-9|title=Renegotiation-proof tenurial contracts as screening mechanisms|journal=[[Journal of Development Economics]]|year=1998|first=Abhinay |last=Muthoo |author-link=Abhinay Muthoo|volume=56|pages=1–26 }}</ref> [[moral hazard]] (Reid, 1976;<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1086/450897|title=Sharecropping and agricultural uncertainty|journal=[[Economic Development and Cultural Change]]|year=1976|first=Joseph D. Jr. |last=Reid|volume=24|issue=3|pages=549–576  |jstor=1153005|s2cid=154402121}}</ref> Eswaran and Kotwal, 1985;<ref>{{cite journal|title=A theory of contractual structure in agriculture|journal=American Economic Review|year=1985|first=Mukesh |last=Eswaran|author2=Ashok Kotwal |volume=75|issue=3|pages=352–367  |jstor=1814805}}</ref> [[Maitreesh Ghatak|Ghatak]] and Pandey, 2000),<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1016/S0304-3878(00)00116-4|title=Contract choice in agriculture with joint moral hazard in effort and risk|journal=Journal of Development Economics|year=2000|first=Maitreesh|last=Ghatak|author-link=Maitreesh Ghatak|author2=Priyanka Pandey |volume=63|issue=2|pages=303–326  }}</ref> 
[[Time_preference#Temporal_discounting|intertemporal discounting]] (Roy and Serfes, 2001),<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1016/S0304-3878(00)00144-9|title=Intertemporal discounting and tenurial contracts|journal=Journal of Development Economics|year=2001|first=Jaideep |last=Roy|author2=Konstantinos Serfes  |volume=64|issue=2|pages=417–436}}</ref> price fluctuations (Sen, 2011)<ref>{{cite journal|last=Sen|first=Debapriya|year=2011|title=A theory of sharecropping: the role of price behavior and imperfect competition|url=https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/14898/1/MPRA_paper_14898.pdf|journal=[[Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization]]|volume=80|issue=1|pages=181–199|doi=10.1016/j.jebo.2011.03.006|s2cid=191253 }}<!--https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/14898/1/MPRA_paper_14898.pdf--></ref> or [[limited liability]] (Shetty, 1988;<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1016/0304-3878(88)90068-5|title=Limited liability, wealth differences, and the tenancy ladder in agrarian economies|journal=Journal of Development Economics|year=1988|first=Sudhir |last=Shetty|volume=29|pages=1–22  }}</ref> [[Kaushik Basu|Basu]], 1992;<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1016/0304-3878(92)90026-6|title=Limited liability and the existence of share tenancy|journal=Journal of Development Economics|year=1992|first=Kaushik |last=Basu|author-link=Kaushik Basu|volume=38|pages=203–220 |url=http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/295593/files/WP61.pdf}}<!--http://collections.unu.edu/view/UNU:5342--></ref> Sengupta, 1997;<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1016/S0304-3878(96)00444-0|title=Limited liability, moral hazard and share tenancy|journal=Journal of Development Economics|year=1997|first=Kunal |last=Sengupta|volume=52|issue=2|pages=393–407 }}</ref> Ray and Singh, 2001).<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1016/S0304-3878(01)00163-8|title=Limited liability, contractual choice and the tenancy ladder|journal=Journal of Development Economics|year=2001|first=Tridip |last=Ray|author2=Nirvikar Singh |volume=66|pages=289–303}}</ref>