Why Was the Mule Used in Southern Agriculture? Empirical Evidence of Principal-Agent Solutions

Economic factors in the choice of an early form of capital: draught animals in early twentieth century South Africa

“…This exercise suggests that the spatial pattern of draught animal use in South Africa was based on economic fundamentals and not on cultural or racial grounds as suggested in other areas. This ® nding is consistent with other studies on the choice of draught animals in the United States and Italy (Kau man, 1992(Kau man, , 1993Galassi and Kau man, 1997), con® rming the notion that economic fundamentals are universal and that principal± agent problems can be used to explain capital choice in highly varied circumstances. In addition, it suggests that early twentieth century South African agriculture was little di erent from that found in other places in the sense that the actors were working within the local institutional framework and maximizing within those constraints.…”

“…D. Kau man 2 These price data are consistent with the prices of these draught animals in the United States during this same period (Kau man, 1993(Kau man, , 1996. the correlation coe cient between the ratio of white-owned farms and the ratio of mules is 0.51, which shows that the relationship between these two variables is positive and large.…”

The Choice of Agrarian Contracts in Early Renaissance Tuscany: Risk Sharing, Moral Hazard, or Capital Market Imperfections?

“…More recently, attention has turned to refining or expanding the basic theory of sharecropping. Among other things, recent theory work has examined the additional implications of factors such as capital constraints, transactions costs, and multiple tasks on optimal contracts and 3 See Rao (1971), Newbery (1977), Hallagan (1987), Braverman and Stiglitz (1982), Shaban, (1987), Holmstrom and Milgrom (1987;1991;1994), Milgrom and Roberts (1992), Allen and Lueck (1992;1993;1995;forthcoming), Laffont and Matoussi (1995), Lanjouw (1995), and Bandiera (1998). 4 Stiglitz (1974), Newbery (1977), Newbery and Stiglitz (1979), Holmstrom and Milgrom (1987, 1991, 1994, Milgrom and Roberts (1992), and Otsuka et al (1992).…”

“…4 Stiglitz (1974), Newbery (1977), Newbery and Stiglitz (1979), Holmstrom and Milgrom (1987, 1991, 1994, Milgrom and Roberts (1992), and Otsuka et al (1992). 5 Hallagan (1978), Alston et al (1984), Allen and Lueck (1992, 1993, 1995, Eswaran and Kotwal (1985), and Bell (1986). 4 second best outcomes.…”

“…Therefore, it becomes less necessary to use fixedrent contracts to provide incentives. Herlihy and Klapisch (1978), Kauffman (1993) and Galassi and Kauffman (1996) provide evidence that landlords in early Renaissance Tuscany, the post-bellum U.S. South, and in twentiethcentury Italy were concerned about overuse of the draft animals and livestock they provided to their tenants. 7 A notable exception is Balestracci (1984).…”