The Economics of Rural Organization Theory, Practice, and Policy

by Hoff, Karla; Braverman, Avishay; Stiglitz, Joseph E.

• ISBN13: 9780195208887
• ISBN10: 0195208889
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1993-07-08
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

A key to understanding why some rural development policies succeed and some fail is found in this book. The editors contend that established economic models are inadequate to interpret the behavior of rural markets and nonmarket institutions. This book investigates economic institutions and contractual arrangements in credit, labor, and land markets and analyzes their implications for the behavior of the rural sector. Drawing on 15 short case studies, five overview and nine theoretical chapters explore some of the most pressing problems facing developing countries: how to promote financial integration of the rural sector, how to rationalize the use of land and water, and how to design and administer tax and transfer policies. The book contributes to theory, empirical methodology, and the solution of concrete policy questions.

Table of Contents

Preface
Notation in This Book
Introduction	p. 1
Imperfect Information and Rural Credit Markets: Puzzles and Policy Perspectives	p. 33
Administrative Failures in Rural Credit Programs	p. 53
Peer Monitoring and Credit Markets	p. 70
Credit Markets in Northern Nigeria: Credit as Insurance in a Rural Economy	p. 87
The Nascent Rural Credit Market in China	p. 109
Imperfect Information, Screening, and the Costs of Informal Lending: A Study of a Rural Credit Market in Pakistan	p. 131
The Thai Rural Credit System and Elements of a Theory: Public Subsidies, Private Information, and Segmented Markets	p. 154
Interactions between Institutional and Informal Credit Agencies in Rural India	p. 186
Cooperative Credit in Agriculture - The Israeli Experience	p. 214
Designing Land Policies: An Overview	p. 231
The Theory of Land Tenure and Property Rights	p. 240
The Economics of Land and Titling in Thailand	p. 259
Indigenous Land Rights Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Constraint on Productivity?	p. 269
Kasugpong in the Philippine Rice Bowl: The Emergence of New Labor Institutions after the Land Reform	p. 292
Path-Dependent Policy Reforms: From Land Reform to Rural Development in Colombia	p. 305
Consequences of Limited Risk Markets and Imperfect Information for the Design of Taxes and Transfers: An Overview	p. 323
Land Taxes, Output Taxes, and Sharecropping: Was Henry George Right?	p. 332
If Agricultural Land Taxation Is So Efficient, Why Is It So Rarely Used?	p. 352
Targeting Taxes and Transfers: Administrative Costs and Policy Design in Developing Economies	p. 374
Implications of Imperfect Risk Markets for Agricultural Taxation	p. 406
How to Analyze the Brazilian Price Band Proposals	p. 436
Poverty Alleviation through Regional Targeting: A Case Study for Indonesia	p. 453
Technological Change, Imperfect Markets, and Agricultural Extension: An Overview	p. 471
Water Rights Doctrines and Technology Adoption	p. 478
Scale Economies, Technological Change, and Diversification	p. 500
Markets and Contracts in African Pastoralism	p. 519
Institutional Reform in India: The Case of Agricultural Extension	p. 530
Agricultural Change and Inequality in Palanpur, 1957-84	p. 543
Contributors	p. 569
Subject Index	p. 573
Name Index	p. 585
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