Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/206625 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Citation: 
[Journal:] Comparative Economic Studies [ISSN:] 1478-3320 [Volume:] 61 [Issue:] 4 [Publisher:] Palgrave Macmillan [Place:] Basingstoke [Year:] 2019 [Pages:] 576-597
Publisher: 
Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke
Abstract: 
A century ago, Alfred Marshall demonstrated the inefficiency associated with farmers receiving only a portion of their marginal product. Farmers will supply less labor than under arrangements in which they receive their marginal product; output will be sub-optimal. Explanations of sharecropping are based on market imperfections, e.g., high transactions costs or inability to insure against risk, suggesting that sharecropping should disappear with economic development. Nevertheless, sharecropping survives. In Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, sharecropping has no legal status but farm surveys provide evidence of its existence. Despite farmers' awareness of the Marshallian paradox, institutional uncertainty contributes to the persistent attractiveness of sharecropping.
Subjects: 
sharecropping
Central Asia
agriculture
JEL: 
Q13
O12
J43
D23
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Published Version

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