In this paper we analyze the effect of inequality in the distribution of endowments of privateinputs (like land, capital) on production efficiency through its effect on the voluntary provisionof collective inputs (like irrigation, public research) that are complementary in production withthose...

The paper analyzes the effect of agricultural tenancy laws offeringsecurity of tenure to tenants and regulating the share of output thatis paid as rent on farm productivity. Theoretically, the net impact oftenancy reform is shown to be a combination of two effects: a bargainingpower effect and a...

Financial interlinkage, in the form of cross-holding of equity and debtbetween firms, characterizes business groups in many countries. We suggestthat such financial interlinkage can be viewed as a way to solve creditrationing caused by asymmetric information. If firms possess better...

We analyze optimal contract choice in agriculture when there is joint moral hazard onthe part of the farmer in the supply of effort and the riskiness of the technique ofcultivation. In the presence of limited liability, high-powered incentive contracts such asfixed rental contracts will induce...

Institutions that rely on joint liability to facilitate lending to the poor have a long historyand are now a common feature of many developing countries. Economists have proposedseveral theories of joint-liability lending that stress various aspects of its informational andenforcement advantages...

This paper analyzes how group lending programs use joint liability to utilize localinformation that borrowers have about each other’s projects through self-selection of groupmembers in the group formation stage. These schemes are shown to lead to positiveassortative matching in group...