The traditional view that sharecropping was a cause of low productivity in European agriculture prior to the Second World War has been challenged by economic historians, and today the contact is often considered as efficient at reducing the monitoring costs associated with labour and allocation...

Wine production in Europe today is dominated by small family vineyards and cooperative wineries, while in the New World viticulture and viniculture is highly concentrated and vertically integrated. This paper argues that these fundamental organizational differences appeared from the turmoil in...

The very different factor endowments of the New World to those found in Europe implied that the wine industry developed its own style and characteristics. In California production was located at a considerable distance from the main markets on the East Coast, and trade was initially controlled...

En torno a 1890, cambios de distinta naturaleza van a afectar la viticultura catalana cultivada en aparcería (rabassa morta): la codificación del contrato de rabassa, la difusión de la filoxera y un largo periodo de bajos precios del vino. Se ha tendido a considerar que los dos primeros...

This paper looks at the response of growers and merchants, first to vine disease and high prices, and then to the problems of overproduction and product adulteration. France produced a large range of wines, but by the early twentieth century most commodity chains were failing to provide accurate...

La aparcería es una institución que, muy a menudo, se ha asociado a la miseria de los campesinos y al atraso o estancamiento agrario. Es un contrato en apariencia poco eficiente, 10 que no ha impedido su gran difusión e incluso su persistencia en la actualidad (al menos en gran parte de...

For long periods, and in line with recent theoretical literature, the rabassa morta sharecropping contract successfully reduced problems of moral hazard and opportunistic behavior, and provided incentives for sharecroppers to respond to market opportunities. However, from the late nineteenth...

Recent literature on sharecropping has emphasized its importance in reducing problems associated with moral hazard in cultivation (Tuscany), or in providing an important ‘rung’ on the farm ladder (US South). Yet despite these and other important features, sharecropping is surprisingly absent...