Tenure Systems in Traditional China

Landownership Concentration in China

“…As outlined by Kang Chao ( 1982) according to neoclassical economic theory, landlords tend to distribute their land widely, in medium-small allotments, to force intensification of production by tenants and greater production per land area. Leveling of farm size brings some leveling of income, for tenants do often garner some livelihood from their rented land.…”

Learning by doing vs. learning from others in a principal-agent model

“…The first reason is the observation that sharing or compensation principalagent agreements in reality regularly take a linear form, e.g. see Chao (1983) on sharecropping; Lafontaine (1992) or Sen (1993) on franchising; Caves et al (1983) on licensing; Masten and Snyder (1993) on equipment leasing, among others. 9 The second reason concerns complexity-given that our paper is about modeling learning about the best compensation contract, the linearity restriction simplifies the principal's problem to learning about two numbers, s and f, as opposed to learning about a general non-linear function c(y), possibly without an analytic closed form, which could make the setting much harder to adapt in.…”

On the importance of uniform sharing rules for efficient matching

“…3 The French and Italian words for "sharecropping" literally mean "50-50 split." 4 For example, Chao (1983) noted that a fixed 50-50 ratio was prevalent in China for more than 2000 years. 5 Tinbergen (1956) pioneered the analysis of labor markets where jobs and workers are described by several characteristics.…”