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

在世界上大多数农业地区，租赁是将各种投入与农业生产职能相结合的一种常见方式。在大多数欧洲国家和北美，租户经营着超过50%的农场。拉丁美洲国家因其有限的租赁用途而脱颖而出，例如在巴西，10%的农场由租户经营。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租户经营的。租住率的下降增加了无地农民的数量，他们中的许多人成为公共和私人土地上的棚户区居民。考虑到有相当多的未利用农地，蹲点似乎令人费解。令人困惑的是：为什么土地所有者不把未使用的土地租给没有土地的人。该项目解决了这一问题，更广泛地有助于了解造成巴西租住率下降的因素。这项研究还将对拉丁美洲其他地区的合同提供相当大的帮助。这个项目得到了国际科学与工程办公室和经济项目的支持。关于租赁的文献很多，但大多数解释都依赖于交易成本，例如不对称信息和道德风险，以及风险。调查人员认为，这些因素在巴西租住率下降中起到了一定作用，但仅有这些因素是不够的。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，来帮助理解巴西农业租赁率的下降，从而为文献做出贡献。无地和土地改革项目可能会降低土地所有者租用土地的意愿，因为他们可能担心，鉴于现有法律表面上有利于租户，如果租户支付租金不足，驱逐他们将过于困难。土地所有者也可能对租房持谨慎态度，因为担心这可能会把他们作为征收的目标。我们所说的土地分化是指在许多农业地区出现的迅速专业化，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，因为一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，因此潜在房东可能会选择让土地空置或转向牧场。巴西在一些地区的专业化导致了从劳动密集型咖啡转向资本密集型大豆。结果，业主经营的单位增加了，租户农业减少了。在巴西的其他地区，棉花和糖的下降以及转向水果和蔬菜导致了类似的租金下降。在对导致租金下降的因素进行计量经济学检验之前，调查人员将对巴西5个州从1950年到现在的农业收缩经济史进行分析。这些州代表着巴西不同的农业区，因此将对拉丁美洲其他类似农业区的租金下降产生影响。在了解了各州的农业状况后，随着时间的推移，调查人员将用1950年至1996年农业人口普查的县级数据来测试土地分化和土地冲突的重要性。巴西的人口普查是测试的理想选择，因为它们将农场归类为由所有者、租户、佃农或棚户区居民经营。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测试边缘化的影响。这项研究的结果将对拉丁美洲乃至全世界的土地改革政策产生影响。拉丁美洲有数以百万计的农村无地人口，他们的生活将通过为当地市场和自己的消费进行生产而得到改善。根据这个项目的结果，政府将被边缘化的土地作为购买和再分配的目标，或者政府保证不征收租金，这在政策上可能是有意义的。

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.