Traditional Elites: Political Economy of Agricultural Technology and Tenancy

Sabrin Beg

No 17-03, Working Papers from University of Delaware, Department of Economics

Abstract: Traditional elites can perpetuate their political influence through agricultural relationships. I show that landlords in Pakistan can make cost-effective transfers to sharecropper-tenants, thereby gaining tenants' electoral support and controlling policy. Technological change in agriculture makes sharecropping less optimal, attenuating landlords' electoral advantage. Exogenous productivity change lowers the rate of sharecropping and lowers the likelihood of election of landlords in landlord-dominated areas; in turn electoral competition improves and the composition of public goods shifts. While demonstrating clientelism in rural agrarian societies through sharecropping contracts, I also highlight how changes in agricultural technology affect it.

Keywords: Land Inequality; Clientelism; Public Goods; Colonial Institutions; Electoral Competition, Traditional Chiefs; Political Economy; Elite Capture; Agricultural Productivity. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O10 O13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 68 pages
Date: 2017
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-dev and nep-pol
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