Property Rights to Land and Agricultural Organization: An Argentina-United States Comparison / Eric C. Edwards, Martin Fiszbein, Gary D. Libecap.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Edwards, Eric C.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Fiszbein, Martin.

Libecap, Gary D.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w27750.

NBER working paper series no. w27750

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2020.

Summary:

The contributions of Harold Demsetz offer key insights on how property rights and transaction costs shape economic organization. This guides our comparison of agricultural organization in two comparable regions, the Argentine Pampas and the US Midwest. In the US, land was distributed in small parcels and actively traded. In the Pampas, land was distributed in large plots and trade was limited because land was a social and political asset as well as commercial. We analyze why this led to persistently larger farms, specialization in ranching, and peculiar tenancy contracts in Argentina, relative to the US. Our empirical analysis, based on county-level data for both regions, shows that geo-climatic factors cannot explain the observed differences in agricultural organization. We discuss implications for long-term economic development in Argentina.

Notes:

Print version record

August 2020.