The modern theory of agrarian organization has studied how the economic environment determines organizational form under the assumption of stable property rights to land. The political economy literature has modelled the endogenous determination of property rights. In this paper we analyze a...

This paper proposes to organize thinking about the opportunities for improving and extending financial markets and safety nets for the poor, by focusing on factors that may explain why the linkage of local financial networks and safety nets with the larger economy often fails or is incomplete....

We present a framework to revisit and reframe some important debates over the nature of free versus unfree labor and the economic consequences of emancipation. We use a simple general equilibrium model in which labor can be either free or coerced and where land and labor will be exchanged on...

A large number of land property rights reforms, including land formalization and titling projects, are taking place around the world today. The purpose of this paper is to describe some of the expected impacts of such interventions, the challenges and problems that arise in measuring and...

I propose a simple general equilibrium formalization of Domar's famous hypothesis on the causes of slavery or serfdom that emphasizes the interactions between factor endowments, the nature of the production technologies, and the initial distribution of property rights over land. The model...

Innovations in lending technologies and market saturation have transformed La Paz, Bolivia into one of the most rapidly changing and competitive microfinance markets in the world. Two lenders stand out in this context: the pioneer BancoSol, which first entered and profitably expanded the loan...

This paper proposes a simple general equilibrium theory of agrarian production organization to explain the emergence and persistence of latifundia - minifundia type patterns of agrarian production organization such as have prevailed historically in many parts of Latin America. When land...