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Enric Saguer - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Sharecropping and the management of large rural estates in catalonia 1850 1950
The Journal of Peasant Studies, 2001Co-Authors: Ramon Garrabou, Jordi Planas, Enric SaguerAbstract:This article examines the role of Sharecropping in the operation of great estates in Catalonia (Spain) from the mid‐nineteenth to the mid‐twentieth century. Noting that the Sharecropping option was not the fruit of inertia, but of the failure of alternatives, we look at the various factors which led to its predominance. Next, we show the adaptability of Sharecropping to a variety of ecological and social contexts. Finally, we argue that the backwardness of Catalan agriculture is not to be attributed to Sharecropping, which, on the contrary, proved comparable to other forms of tenure in terms of economic efficiency, and was also a successful instrument for the reproduction of social inequalities and labour exploitation.
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Sharecropping and the management of large rural estates in Catalonia, 1850–1950
The Journal of Peasant Studies, 2001Co-Authors: Ramon Garrabou, Jordi Planas, Enric SaguerAbstract:This article examines the role of Sharecropping in the operation of great estates in Catalonia (Spain) from the mid‐nineteenth to the mid‐twentieth century. Noting that the Sharecropping option was not the fruit of inertia, but of the failure of alternatives, we look at the various factors which led to its predominance. Next, we show the adaptability of Sharecropping to a variety of ecological and social contexts. Finally, we argue that the backwardness of Catalan agriculture is not to be attributed to Sharecropping, which, on the contrary, proved comparable to other forms of tenure in terms of economic efficiency, and was also a successful instrument for the reproduction of social inequalities and labour exploitation.
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Sharecropping and management of large rural estates in contemporary catalonia 1
2001Co-Authors: Ramon Garrabou, Jordi Planas, Enric SaguerAbstract:The capacity of forms of tenure, in particular Sharecropping, to stimulate agricultural growth has fuelled a wide-ranging debate, begun by the classical economists of the eighteenth century and continued until today. Up until the 1970s, the dominant opinion was unfavourable to Sharecropping. Since then, however, various empirical and theoretical studies have appeared which question such a view. These studies mostly take a neo-institutional approach. Distancing themselves from more orthodox neoclassical thinking, they start from the premise that a perfectly competitive market, in which a rational distribution of resources can be achieved, does not exist and conclude that Sharecropping could reach notable levels of efficiency, albeit only second-best efficiency. 2 These conclusions coincide in part with some research into contemporary Spanish and Catalan agriculture, the results of which contradict the dominant picture of backwardness and low capacity for agricultural growth. The aim of this article is to analyse the role of Sharecropping in Catalonia and to question the importance of this form of tenure in explaining the slow growth of Catalan agriculture. Backwardness has been a recurrent theme in Spanish economic history, and blame for this situation has frequently been attributed to the agricultural sector, the system of property holding and the forms of tenure being singled out as the main obstacles to change. The time frame of this article is the hundred years or so between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries and its setting is Catalonia. It summarises the findings of our study of a group of large landed estates evenly distributed across the main agricultural areas of Catalonia [Garrabou, Planas & Saguer, 2000] and it is to that study that we refer the reader for the substantiation of the claims we make below.
James Simpson - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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explaining contract choice vertical coordination Sharecropping and wine in europe 1850 1950
The Economic History Review, 2012Co-Authors: Juan Carmona, James SimpsonAbstract:Recent literature on Sharecropping has emphasized its importance in reducing problems associated with moral hazard in cultivation (in Tuscany), or providing a crucial ‘rung’ on the farm ladder (in the US south). Yet despite these and other important features, Sharecropping was surprisingly absent in most regions. Using case studies associated with French wine production, this article argues that a number of factors have often been overlooked in the literature, the first of which is the need for landowners to be able to offer farms that were sufficiently large both to employ the sharecropper's family on a full‐time basis, and to allow them to produce a variety of products to minimize risk. Second, measurement problems exist with the division of the harvest, especially when quality was an important factor in determining price. Finally, the nature of vertical cooperation and integration associated with the production and marketing arrangements of individual crops suggests that landowners were not indifferent to receiving payment in cash or kind, and this affected contract choice. This article incorporates these ideas to explain not just the presence and absence of Sharecropping in different geographical localities, but also the wide variety of different forms of the contract that existed in France.
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Explaining Contract Choice: Vertical Coordination, Sharecropping, and Wine in Europe, 1850–1950
The Economic History Review, 2011Co-Authors: Juan Carmona, James SimpsonAbstract:Recent literature on Sharecropping has emphasized its importance in reducing problems associated with moral hazard in cultivation (in Tuscany), or providing a crucial ‘rung’ on the farm ladder (in the US south). Yet despite these and other important features, Sharecropping was surprisingly absent in most regions. Using case studies associated with French wine production, this article argues that a number of factors have often been overlooked in the literature, the first of which is the need for landowners to be able to offer farms that were sufficiently large both to employ the sharecropper's family on a full‐time basis, and to allow them to produce a variety of products to minimize risk. Second, measurement problems exist with the division of the harvest, especially when quality was an important factor in determining price. Finally, the nature of vertical cooperation and integration associated with the production and marketing arrangements of individual crops suggests that landowners were not indifferent to receiving payment in cash or kind, and this affected contract choice. This article incorporates these ideas to explain not just the presence and absence of Sharecropping in different geographical localities, but also the wide variety of different forms of the contract that existed in France.
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explaining contract choice vertical co ordination Sharecropping and wine france 1850 1950
2010Co-Authors: James Simpson, Juan CarmonaAbstract:Recent literature on Sharecropping has emphasized its importance in reducing problems associated with moral hazard in cultivation (Tuscany), or in providing an important ‘rung’ on the farm ladder (US South). Yet despite these and other important features, Sharecropping is surprisingly absent in many, if not most other settings. Using case studies associated with French wine production, this paper argues that a number of factors have often been overlooked in the literature: 1) the need for landowners to be able to offer farms that were both sufficiently large to employ full time the sharecropper’s family, and allowed them to produce a variety of products to minimize risk; 2) measurement problems associated with the division of the harvest, especially when quality was an important factor in determining farm price; 3) and the nature of vertical co-operation and integration associated with the production and marketing arrangements of individual crops explains that landowners were not indifferent to receiving payment in cash or kind, and this affected contract choice. This paper incorporates these ideas to explain not just the presence and absence of Sharecropping in different geographical localities, but also the wide variety of different forms of the contract that existed in Europe.
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Why Sharecropping? : explaining its presence and absence in Europe's vineyards, 1750-1950
2007Co-Authors: Juan Carmona, James SimpsonAbstract:The traditional view that Sharecropping was a cause of low productivity in European agriculture prior to the Second World War has been challenged by economic historians, and today the contact is often considered as efficient at reducing the monitoring costs associated with labour and allocation of risk between landowners and farmers, especially when capital markets were weak for working capital. Yet if Sharecropping was a relatively efficient contract, why was it not found more often? This paper looks at the vine, a crop that was widespread in Europe and that has been central to the current debates. It argues that while the literature has been right to emphasise the importance of the high monitoring costs, it has ignored the equally important costs associated with dividing the harvest. These were sufficiently large to make the contract unattractive, except in the few cases where the landowner was prepared to be actively involved in wine making and its sale, such as was found in Beaujolais or Tuscany.
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the rabassa morta in catalan viticulture the rise and decline of a long term Sharecropping contract 1670s 1920s
The Journal of Economic History, 1999Co-Authors: Juan Carmona, James SimpsonAbstract:We examine the working of a Sharecropping contract, the "rabassa morta". We argue, in line with much of recent theoretical work, that the contract was originally efficient, because it reduced problems of moral hazard and opportunistic behaviour, and provided sharecroppers with sufficient incentives to respond to market opportunities, for over a couple of centuries. However, from the late nineteenth century, the combination of technical change, rising wages, weak wine prices all increased the incentives for postcontractual opportunistic behaviour on the pan of the sharecropper, leading to conflicts and an undennining of the trust that had been built up over the previous centuries. Therefore, by the early 1920s the contract was often considered synonymous with "exploitation" and "impoverishment", tenns frequently found in the more traditionalliterature on Sharecropping.
Juan Carmona - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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explaining contract choice vertical coordination Sharecropping and wine in europe 1850 1950
The Economic History Review, 2012Co-Authors: Juan Carmona, James SimpsonAbstract:Recent literature on Sharecropping has emphasized its importance in reducing problems associated with moral hazard in cultivation (in Tuscany), or providing a crucial ‘rung’ on the farm ladder (in the US south). Yet despite these and other important features, Sharecropping was surprisingly absent in most regions. Using case studies associated with French wine production, this article argues that a number of factors have often been overlooked in the literature, the first of which is the need for landowners to be able to offer farms that were sufficiently large both to employ the sharecropper's family on a full‐time basis, and to allow them to produce a variety of products to minimize risk. Second, measurement problems exist with the division of the harvest, especially when quality was an important factor in determining price. Finally, the nature of vertical cooperation and integration associated with the production and marketing arrangements of individual crops suggests that landowners were not indifferent to receiving payment in cash or kind, and this affected contract choice. This article incorporates these ideas to explain not just the presence and absence of Sharecropping in different geographical localities, but also the wide variety of different forms of the contract that existed in France.
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Explaining Contract Choice: Vertical Coordination, Sharecropping, and Wine in Europe, 1850–1950
The Economic History Review, 2011Co-Authors: Juan Carmona, James SimpsonAbstract:Recent literature on Sharecropping has emphasized its importance in reducing problems associated with moral hazard in cultivation (in Tuscany), or providing a crucial ‘rung’ on the farm ladder (in the US south). Yet despite these and other important features, Sharecropping was surprisingly absent in most regions. Using case studies associated with French wine production, this article argues that a number of factors have often been overlooked in the literature, the first of which is the need for landowners to be able to offer farms that were sufficiently large both to employ the sharecropper's family on a full‐time basis, and to allow them to produce a variety of products to minimize risk. Second, measurement problems exist with the division of the harvest, especially when quality was an important factor in determining price. Finally, the nature of vertical cooperation and integration associated with the production and marketing arrangements of individual crops suggests that landowners were not indifferent to receiving payment in cash or kind, and this affected contract choice. This article incorporates these ideas to explain not just the presence and absence of Sharecropping in different geographical localities, but also the wide variety of different forms of the contract that existed in France.
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explaining contract choice vertical co ordination Sharecropping and wine france 1850 1950
2010Co-Authors: James Simpson, Juan CarmonaAbstract:Recent literature on Sharecropping has emphasized its importance in reducing problems associated with moral hazard in cultivation (Tuscany), or in providing an important ‘rung’ on the farm ladder (US South). Yet despite these and other important features, Sharecropping is surprisingly absent in many, if not most other settings. Using case studies associated with French wine production, this paper argues that a number of factors have often been overlooked in the literature: 1) the need for landowners to be able to offer farms that were both sufficiently large to employ full time the sharecropper’s family, and allowed them to produce a variety of products to minimize risk; 2) measurement problems associated with the division of the harvest, especially when quality was an important factor in determining farm price; 3) and the nature of vertical co-operation and integration associated with the production and marketing arrangements of individual crops explains that landowners were not indifferent to receiving payment in cash or kind, and this affected contract choice. This paper incorporates these ideas to explain not just the presence and absence of Sharecropping in different geographical localities, but also the wide variety of different forms of the contract that existed in Europe.
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Why Sharecropping? : explaining its presence and absence in Europe's vineyards, 1750-1950
2007Co-Authors: Juan Carmona, James SimpsonAbstract:The traditional view that Sharecropping was a cause of low productivity in European agriculture prior to the Second World War has been challenged by economic historians, and today the contact is often considered as efficient at reducing the monitoring costs associated with labour and allocation of risk between landowners and farmers, especially when capital markets were weak for working capital. Yet if Sharecropping was a relatively efficient contract, why was it not found more often? This paper looks at the vine, a crop that was widespread in Europe and that has been central to the current debates. It argues that while the literature has been right to emphasise the importance of the high monitoring costs, it has ignored the equally important costs associated with dividing the harvest. These were sufficiently large to make the contract unattractive, except in the few cases where the landowner was prepared to be actively involved in wine making and its sale, such as was found in Beaujolais or Tuscany.
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Sharecropping and livestock specialization in France, 1830–1930
Continuity and Change, 2006Co-Authors: Juan CarmonaAbstract:Historians of Sharecropping in France have usually emphasized its negative effects on growth and on the workers' welfare. However, from about 1840 the regions of central and western France, regions where sharecroppers were especially numerous, were also areas that saw great improvements and the specialization in commercial livestock. As the author shows, landowners from these areas used Sharecropping contracts in order both to seize the opportunities given by the potential scale economies in livestock rearing and to take advantage of family labour at a time of increasing wages. After presenting some basic data regarding Sharecropping contracts, the second section is intended to describe the improvements in livestock farming in the area under Sharecropping after 1840 and the contribution of landowners. Section III offers an explanation of why landowners preferred Sharecropping to fixed-rent contracts. Three causes in particular are identified: (i) a lack of physical and human capital sufficient to allow potential farmers to engage in large scale farming; (ii) the contribution of landlord managerial expertise; and (iii) the fact that the complexity of mixed farming required a quality of work that would have been too expensive with wage labour. In a final section the ways in which the success of Sharecropping minimized transaction costs are discussed.
Ramon Garrabou - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Sharecropping and the management of large rural estates in catalonia 1850 1950
The Journal of Peasant Studies, 2001Co-Authors: Ramon Garrabou, Jordi Planas, Enric SaguerAbstract:This article examines the role of Sharecropping in the operation of great estates in Catalonia (Spain) from the mid‐nineteenth to the mid‐twentieth century. Noting that the Sharecropping option was not the fruit of inertia, but of the failure of alternatives, we look at the various factors which led to its predominance. Next, we show the adaptability of Sharecropping to a variety of ecological and social contexts. Finally, we argue that the backwardness of Catalan agriculture is not to be attributed to Sharecropping, which, on the contrary, proved comparable to other forms of tenure in terms of economic efficiency, and was also a successful instrument for the reproduction of social inequalities and labour exploitation.
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Sharecropping and the management of large rural estates in Catalonia, 1850–1950
The Journal of Peasant Studies, 2001Co-Authors: Ramon Garrabou, Jordi Planas, Enric SaguerAbstract:This article examines the role of Sharecropping in the operation of great estates in Catalonia (Spain) from the mid‐nineteenth to the mid‐twentieth century. Noting that the Sharecropping option was not the fruit of inertia, but of the failure of alternatives, we look at the various factors which led to its predominance. Next, we show the adaptability of Sharecropping to a variety of ecological and social contexts. Finally, we argue that the backwardness of Catalan agriculture is not to be attributed to Sharecropping, which, on the contrary, proved comparable to other forms of tenure in terms of economic efficiency, and was also a successful instrument for the reproduction of social inequalities and labour exploitation.
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Sharecropping and management of large rural estates in contemporary catalonia 1
2001Co-Authors: Ramon Garrabou, Jordi Planas, Enric SaguerAbstract:The capacity of forms of tenure, in particular Sharecropping, to stimulate agricultural growth has fuelled a wide-ranging debate, begun by the classical economists of the eighteenth century and continued until today. Up until the 1970s, the dominant opinion was unfavourable to Sharecropping. Since then, however, various empirical and theoretical studies have appeared which question such a view. These studies mostly take a neo-institutional approach. Distancing themselves from more orthodox neoclassical thinking, they start from the premise that a perfectly competitive market, in which a rational distribution of resources can be achieved, does not exist and conclude that Sharecropping could reach notable levels of efficiency, albeit only second-best efficiency. 2 These conclusions coincide in part with some research into contemporary Spanish and Catalan agriculture, the results of which contradict the dominant picture of backwardness and low capacity for agricultural growth. The aim of this article is to analyse the role of Sharecropping in Catalonia and to question the importance of this form of tenure in explaining the slow growth of Catalan agriculture. Backwardness has been a recurrent theme in Spanish economic history, and blame for this situation has frequently been attributed to the agricultural sector, the system of property holding and the forms of tenure being singled out as the main obstacles to change. The time frame of this article is the hundred years or so between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries and its setting is Catalonia. It summarises the findings of our study of a group of large landed estates evenly distributed across the main agricultural areas of Catalonia [Garrabou, Planas & Saguer, 2000] and it is to that study that we refer the reader for the substantiation of the claims we make below.
Jordi Planas - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Sharecropping and the management of large rural estates in catalonia 1850 1950
The Journal of Peasant Studies, 2001Co-Authors: Ramon Garrabou, Jordi Planas, Enric SaguerAbstract:This article examines the role of Sharecropping in the operation of great estates in Catalonia (Spain) from the mid‐nineteenth to the mid‐twentieth century. Noting that the Sharecropping option was not the fruit of inertia, but of the failure of alternatives, we look at the various factors which led to its predominance. Next, we show the adaptability of Sharecropping to a variety of ecological and social contexts. Finally, we argue that the backwardness of Catalan agriculture is not to be attributed to Sharecropping, which, on the contrary, proved comparable to other forms of tenure in terms of economic efficiency, and was also a successful instrument for the reproduction of social inequalities and labour exploitation.
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Sharecropping and the management of large rural estates in Catalonia, 1850–1950
The Journal of Peasant Studies, 2001Co-Authors: Ramon Garrabou, Jordi Planas, Enric SaguerAbstract:This article examines the role of Sharecropping in the operation of great estates in Catalonia (Spain) from the mid‐nineteenth to the mid‐twentieth century. Noting that the Sharecropping option was not the fruit of inertia, but of the failure of alternatives, we look at the various factors which led to its predominance. Next, we show the adaptability of Sharecropping to a variety of ecological and social contexts. Finally, we argue that the backwardness of Catalan agriculture is not to be attributed to Sharecropping, which, on the contrary, proved comparable to other forms of tenure in terms of economic efficiency, and was also a successful instrument for the reproduction of social inequalities and labour exploitation.
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Sharecropping and management of large rural estates in contemporary catalonia 1
2001Co-Authors: Ramon Garrabou, Jordi Planas, Enric SaguerAbstract:The capacity of forms of tenure, in particular Sharecropping, to stimulate agricultural growth has fuelled a wide-ranging debate, begun by the classical economists of the eighteenth century and continued until today. Up until the 1970s, the dominant opinion was unfavourable to Sharecropping. Since then, however, various empirical and theoretical studies have appeared which question such a view. These studies mostly take a neo-institutional approach. Distancing themselves from more orthodox neoclassical thinking, they start from the premise that a perfectly competitive market, in which a rational distribution of resources can be achieved, does not exist and conclude that Sharecropping could reach notable levels of efficiency, albeit only second-best efficiency. 2 These conclusions coincide in part with some research into contemporary Spanish and Catalan agriculture, the results of which contradict the dominant picture of backwardness and low capacity for agricultural growth. The aim of this article is to analyse the role of Sharecropping in Catalonia and to question the importance of this form of tenure in explaining the slow growth of Catalan agriculture. Backwardness has been a recurrent theme in Spanish economic history, and blame for this situation has frequently been attributed to the agricultural sector, the system of property holding and the forms of tenure being singled out as the main obstacles to change. The time frame of this article is the hundred years or so between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries and its setting is Catalonia. It summarises the findings of our study of a group of large landed estates evenly distributed across the main agricultural areas of Catalonia [Garrabou, Planas & Saguer, 2000] and it is to that study that we refer the reader for the substantiation of the claims we make below.