We use plot-level data from ICRISAT to assess competing explanations for an old empirical regularity - the inverse relationship between land productivity and farm size. The presence of farmers who simultaneously crop multiple plots with different sizes is used to test (and reject) explanations...

The real impact of taxes on the economy can only be assessed when we consider the behavioral responses of economic agents due to these taxes. This paper shows how income taxation in Brazil gives incentives to some classes of taxpayers to incorporate in order to reduce their tax burden. Microdata...

This paper analyzes the determinants of local institutions and distribution of political power within a constant ‘macro-institutional’ setting. We show that characteristics of Brazilian municipalities related to institutional quality and distribution of political power are partly inherited...

When agricultural productivity improves, farmers may react by expanding farming and further encroach on forest lands, or they may choose to intensify and produce more output with less land. We specify the conditions under which agricultural productivity can have such ambiguous effects on...

This paper analyzes the determinants of local institutions and distribution of political power within a constant ‘macro-institutional’ setting. We show that characteristics of Brazilian municipalities related to institutional quality and distribution of political power are partly inherited...

This paper analyzes the determinants of local institutions and distribution of political power within a constant 'macro-institutional' setting. We show that characteristics of Brazilian municipalities related to institutional quality and distribution of political power are partly inherited from...

This article examines the effects of nonagricultural land use on agrarian organization and land reform in an economy characterized by limited credit and land rental markets. The nonagricultural demand for land, under credit constraint, generates a potential mismatch between the distribution of...

This paper analyzes the roots of variation in de facto institutions, within a constant de jure institutional setting. We explore the role of rent-seeking episodes in colonial Brazil as determinants of the quality of current local institutions, and argue that this variation reveals a de facto...

The inverse relationship between land productivity and farm size is an old and puzzling empirical regularity. Most explanations for this relationship rely on market imperfections that jointly determine the farm size and the household's shadow price of some productive inputs. We use plot-level...