Technical efficiency, production risk and sharecropping

The case of rice farming in Chile

Authors

  • Francisca Quijada Universidad del Bío-Bío
  • Cesar Salazar Universidad del Bío-Bío https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0199-7688
  • Juan Cabas Universidad del Bío-Bío

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.60758/laer.v31.63

Keywords:

technical efficiency, production risk, sharecropping, rice farming

Abstract

Contractual relationships regarding land tenure in agriculture are diverse. From formal systems such as landowner and fixed rent, sharecropping emerges as an alternative in which the owner of the land shares the benefits and risks of the results with tenants. Therefore, land tenure systems differ in terms of the incentives that the landowner offers to workers, which can have an impact on productivity and production risk. The purpose of this work is to analyze the effect of sharecropping on the mean and variance of technical efficiency for a sample of rice producers in the Ñuble Region, Chile. Using a panel data of 109 farmers for the years 2014-2015, we estimate a stochastic frontier model that allow heteroskedasticity in both the general and inefficiency-specific error components. The results show that farmers cultivating under sharecropping show higher levels of technical efficiency while those cultivating land by the fixed rental system reveal an increase in the variance of technical efficiency compared to landowners. Explanations based on moral hazard problems and risk sharing mechanisms are discussed.

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Published

2022-12-26

Issue

Section

Regular articles

How to Cite

Technical efficiency, production risk and sharecropping: The case of rice farming in Chile. (2022). Latin American Economic Review, 31, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.60758/laer.v31.63

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