摘要：This paper examines whether sharecroppers and fixed-rent tenants in the rice farms of South Asiaare distinguished by their farming skills. The idea that fixed-rent contracts are typically given to relativelyskilled tenants dates back to the agricultural (tenancy) ladder hypothesis of Spillman [1919]. The screeningmodels [e.g. Hallagan 1978] that have attempted to formalize this idea assume that landlords do not observethe tenants' skill levels. This assumption is restrictive, and has found little support in empirical studies. Theprincipal-agent model proposed in this paper focuses on the differences between time-intensive and skill-intensive labor tasks. I show that tenancy contracts are designed to match the provision of these tasks withthe owners of time and skill inputs. Sharecropping, in this model, provides an incentive scheme that allowsfor the specialization between a time-abundant tenant and a skill-abundant landlord. The second part of the paper empirically explores this result with household-level data from SriLanka. A two-stage model that distinguishes the choice of contract from the extent of land leased is used.The results clearly show that relatively skilled farmers are more likely to become fixed-rent tenants. I alsofind that, conditional on contract choice, farming skills do not affect the extent of land leased. A substantialpart of the empirical analysis is devoted to the measurement of farming skills. I interpret farming skills as thecontribution of observed farmer characteristics to the technical efficiency of the farm. This measurerecognizes that many dimensions of skills are observed, and the use of weights computed from a productionfunction to construct the skill index is theoretically more appealing than the ad hoc selection of proxyvariables.
关键词：Land Tenancy; Farming Skills; Agricultural Labor; Sri Lanka
