Deadly Anchor: Gender Bias under Russian Colonization of Kazakhstan, 1898-1908

We study the impact of a large-scale economic crisis on gender equality, using historical data from Kazakhstan in the late 19th – early 20th century. We focus on sex ratios (number of women per man) in Kazakh nomadic population between 1898 and 1908, in the midst of large-scale Russian in-migration into Kazakhstan that caused a sharp exogenous increase in land pressure. The resulting severe economic crisis made the nomadic organization of the Kazakh economy unsustainable and forced most Kazakh households into sedentary agriculture. Using a large novel dataset constructed from Russian colonial expedition materials, we document a low and worsening sex ratio (in particular, among poor households) between 1898 and 1908. The theoretical hypothesis that garners most support is that of excess female mortality in poorer households (especially among adults), driven by gender discrimination within households under the increasing pressure for scarce food resources.

The Effect of Land Scarcity on Farm Structure: Empirical Evidence from Mali

We analyze the individualization of farm units in Mali in the sense of a transformation of purely collective farms into mixed units in which private plots coexist with collective fields. While a moral-hazard-in-team problem plagues production on the latter, a dilemma arises insofar as the household head extracts his income form it. The head thus faces a trade-off between efficiency and capture. We show, within the framework of a patriarchal farm household model, that the choice is tilted toward private plot as land becomes more scarce. On the basis of first hand data collected in Southern Mali, we test and confirm the above prediction. Moreover, the relationship between land scarcity and the presence of individual plots holds only when there are at least one married couple (besides the head) within the household. The explanation we put forward is that the presence or suspicion of labour-shirking on the collective field arise only when there are interferences by in-laws and differences in the size of conjugal units.

Understanding the Coexistence of Formal and Informal Credit Markets in Piura, Peru

This paper examines why farm households seek informal loans in Piura, Peru, where formal lenders offer loans at lower interest rates. A panel data econometric analysis reveals that the informal sector serves various types of clients: households excluded from the formal sector but also households that prefer informal loans because of lower transaction costs or lower risk. An in-depth examination of contract terms and loan technologies permits an accurate comparison of effective loan costs and contractual risk across sectors and reveals that proximity and economies of scope enjoyed by informal lenders enable them to substitute information-intensive screening and monitoring for contractual risk and supply these various types of clients. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.</p

Transformation of the Family under Rising Land Pressure: A Theoretical Essay

If we understand well the individualization of land tenure rules under conditions of growing land scarcity and increased market integration, much less is known about the mode of evolution of the farm-cum-family units possessing the land. Inspired by first-hand evidence from West Africa, this paper argues that these units undergo the same process of individualization governed by the same forces as property rights in land. It provides a simple theoretical account of the coexistence of different forms of family when farms are heterogenous in land endowments and technology is stagnant. The paper also offers analytical insights into the sequence following which such forms succeed each other.patriarchal family, land division, Africa

Credit Constraints and Productivity in Peruvian Agriculture

This paper evaluates the performance of a rural credit market in Peru. We develop a model that shows that collateral requirements imposed by lenders in response to asymmetric information can lead not just to quantity rationing but also to transaction cost rationing and risk rationing. Just like quantity rationing, these two additional forms of non-price rationing adversely affect farm resource allocation and productivity. We test the insights of the model using a panel data set from Northern Peru. We estimate the returns to productive endowments for constrained and unconstrained households using a switching regression model. We find that, consistent with the theory, productivity is independent of endowments for unconstrained households but is tightly linked to endowments for constrained households. We estimate that credit constraints lower the value of agricultural output in the study region by 26%.Financial Economics, International Development,

Transformation of the Family under Rising Land Pressure: A Theoretical Essay

If we understand well the individualization of land tenure rules under conditions of growing land scarcity and increased market integration, much less is known about the mode of evolution of the farm-cum-family units possessing the land. Inspired by first-hand evidence from West Africa, this paper argues that these units undergo the same process of individualization governed by the same forces as property rights in land. It provides a simple theoretical account of the coexistence of different forms of family when farms are heterogenous in land endowments and technology is stagnant. The paper also offers analytical insights into the sequence following which such forms succeed each other.

RISK, WEALTH AND SECTORAL CHOICE IN RURAL CREDIT MARKETS

We develop a model of sorting and matching between borrowers and lenders across formal and informal credit markets in a developing country context. We highlight the role of risk both on credit access and sectoral choice. We examine how activity and sectoral choice vary across agents with heterogeneous wealth endowments.International Development,

Direct elicitation of credit constraints: Conceptual and practical issues with an empirical application

Replaced with revised version of paper 08/03/05.Financial Economics,

Direct Elicitation of Credit Constraints: Conceptual and Practical Issues with an Empirical Application to Peruvian Agriculture

This paper provides a methodological bridge leading from the well-developed theory of credit rationing to the less developed territory of empirically identifying credit constraints. We begin by developing a simple model showing that credit constraints may take three forms: quantity rationing, transaction cost rationing, and risk rationing. Each form of non-price rationing adversely affects household resource allocation and thus should be accounted for in empirical analyses of credit market performance. We then outline a survey strategy to directly classify households as credit unconstrained or constrained and, if constrained, to further identify which of the three non-price rationing mechanisms is at play. We discuss several practical issues that arise due to the use of a combination of “factual” and “interpretative” survey questions. Finally, using a data set from northern Peru, we demonstrate the importance of accounting for all three forms of credit constraints by estimating the increase in farm production that would result from relaxing credit constraints. The inclusion of transaction- and risk-rationed households in the constrained group results in an estimated impact that is twice as large as the impact when only quantity rationed households are considered constrained.Financial Economics,

Credit Constraints and Financial Efficiency in Peruvian Agriculture

Agricultural Finance,