Land Differentiation, Land Conflict and the Decline of Agricultural Tenancy in Brazil

巴西的土地分化、土地冲突和农业租赁的衰落

• 批准号: 0528146
• 负责人: Lee Alston
• 金额: $ 23.43万
• 依托单位: University of Colorado at Boulder
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-09-01 至 2010-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0528146&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Land; Differentiation; Conflict; Decline; Agricultural

In most agricultural regions of the world tenancy is a common way of combining varying inputs to the agricultural production function. In the majority of the European countries and in North America tenants operate over 50% of farms. Latin American countries stand out for their limited use of tenancy, e.g., in Brazil tenants operate 10% of the farms. Historically this was not the case. Less than fifty years ago tenants operated a majority of the farms in some regions. The decline of tenancy has increased the pool of landless peasants, many of whom became squatters on public and private land. Squatting seems puzzling given the presence of considerable hectares of unused agricultural land. The puzzle is: why don't the landowners of the unused land rent to the landless. The project addresses this question and more broadly contributes to the understanding of the factors responsible for the decline in tenancy in Brazil. The research will also shed considerable light on contracting in other areas of Latin America. This project is being supported by the Office of International Science and Engineering and the Economics Program.The literature on tenancy is vast but the majority of explanations rest on transaction costs, e.g. asymmetric information and moral hazard, and risk. The investigators believe that these factors played a role in the fall in tenancy in Brazil but alone they are insufficient. They will contribute to the literature by testing for the importance of land conflict and land differentiation, including the marginalization of some land, in understanding the decline of agricultural tenancy in Brazil. Landlessness and land reform projects may reduce the desirability to land owners of renting land because they may fear that it will be too difficult to evict tenants if they are deficient in paying rent, given existing legislation ostensibly favoring tenants. Landowners may also be wary of renting for fear that it may target them for expropriation. By land differentiation we mean the rapid specialization that occurred in many agricultural regions partially as a result of the decline in transportation costs and the decline in trade barriers. Specialization marginalizes some land in the sense that some land may not be worth the opportunity cost of capital and the return to applying labor via a rental contract may be only subsistence and as such a potential landlord would opt to leave the land vacant or switch to pasture. Specialization for Brazil in some regions has led to a switch from labor intensive coffee to capital intensive soybeans. As a result, there was a rise in owner operated units and fall in tenant farming. In other areas of Brazil the decline in cotton and sugar and the switch to fruits and vegetables lead to a similar decline in tenancy.Prior to testing econometrically the factors responsible for the decline in rentals, the investigators will produce analytical narratives of the economic history of agricultural contracting in 5 states in Brazil from 1950 to the present. The states represent different agricultural regions in Brazil and as such will have implications for the decline in rentals in other similar agricultural regions in Latin America. After understanding the agricultural conditions across states and over time the investigators will test for the importance of land differentiation and land conflict with county level data from agricultural censuses from 1950 to 1996. The Brazilian censuses are ideal for testing because they classify farms as being operated by owners, tenants, sharecroppers or squatters. They also collect data on "unused but usable" land which will allow us to further test for the impact of marginalization. The results of the research will have implications for land reform policies in Latin America and even more broadly worldwide. There are millions of rural landless in Latin America whose livelihood would be improved by producing for local markets and their own consumption. Depending on this project's results it may make policy sense for governments to target the marginalized lands either for purchase and redistribution, or for the government to guarantee renting without expropriation.

在世界上大多数农业地区，租佃制是将各种投入结合到农业生产函数中的一种常见方式。在大多数欧洲国家和北美，租户经营着50%以上的农场。拉丁美洲国家对租赁的使用有限，例如，在巴西，10%的农场由佃农经营。从历史上看，情况并非如此。不到50年前，一些地区的大部分农场都是由佃农经营的。租赁权的减少增加了无地农民的数量，其中许多人成为公共和私人土地上的擅自占地者。由于存在大量未使用的农业用地，擅自占地似乎令人费解。问题是：为什么闲置土地的地主不租给无地者。该项目解决了这一问题，并更广泛地帮助了解导致巴西租赁减少的因素。这项研究还将为拉丁美洲其他地区的承包提供相当多的启示。 该项目由国际科学与工程办公室和经济学项目支持。关于租赁的文献非常多，但大多数解释都是基于交易成本，例如信息不对称和道德风险。调查人员认为，这些因素在巴西的租赁下降中发挥了作用，但仅凭这些因素是不够的。他们将通过测试土地冲突和土地分化的重要性，包括一些土地的边缘化，在理解巴西农业租佃制的衰落，为文献做出贡献。无土地和土地改革项目可能会降低土地所有者租赁土地的意愿，因为他们可能担心，鉴于现行立法表面上有利于租户，如果租户支付租金不足，将很难驱逐租户。土地所有者也可能对出租持谨慎态度，因为担心出租可能会针对他们进行征收。我们所说的土地分化是指在许多农业地区出现的快速专业化，部分原因是运输成本下降和贸易壁垒减少。专业化使一些土地边缘化，因为有些土地可能不值得资本的机会成本，通过租赁合同使用劳动力的回报可能只是维持生计，因此潜在的地主会选择将土地空置或转向牧场。巴西在某些地区的专业化导致了从劳动密集型咖啡到资本密集型大豆的转变。因此，业主经营的单位增加，佃农减少。在巴西的其他地区，棉花和糖的减少以及转向水果和蔬菜导致租赁的类似下降。在对租金下降的因素进行计量经济学测试之前，调查人员将对巴西5个州从1950年至今的农业承包经济历史进行分析。这些州代表了巴西不同的农业区，因此将对拉丁美洲其他类似农业区的租金下降产生影响。在了解了各州和一段时间的农业状况后，调查人员将利用1950年至1996年农业普查的县级数据来检验土地分化和土地冲突的重要性。巴西的人口普查是理想的测试，因为它们将农场分为业主、租户、佃农或擅自占地者。他们还收集关于“未使用但可用”土地的数据，这将使我们能够进一步检验边缘化的影响。 研究结果将对拉丁美洲乃至全世界的土地改革政策产生影响。拉丁美洲有数百万农村无地者，他们的生计将通过为当地市场生产和自己消费而得到改善。 根据该项目的结果，政府将边缘化土地作为购买和重新分配的目标，或政府保证租赁而不征用，可能具有政策意义。