Productive inefficiency in patriarchal family farms: evidence from Mali

Tatiana Goetghebuer

No 34, Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Berlin 2011 from Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics

Abstract: In Mali, there exist various farm-cum-family structures, so that agricultural production occurs on plots controlled by different members of the household. In this paper, we want to lay emphasis on the under-researched differentials between collective and individual plots (attended by male or female farmer) in the context of extended family farms using input and output first hand data collected in the south-eastern part of Mali. First, we find that land yields are significantly larger on (male) private plots than on common plots with similar characteristics planted to the same crop in the same year after all appropriate controls have been included. And, second, we bring strong suggestive evidence that a moral hazard-in-team problem exists on the collective fields (yet only with regard to care-intensive crops) that could explain their relatively poor performance.

Keywords: Land productivity; family structure; moral-hazard-in-team problem; collective (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 D57 J12 O12 O13 Q12 Q15 R20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-agr, nep-cta and nep-eff
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:gdec11:34

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