Labor tying

Anindita Mukherjee; Debraj Ray

doi:10.1016/0304-3878(95)00011-E

Labor tying

Anindita Mukherjee, Debraj Ray

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

We study labor-tying in a competitive agricultural economy. The co-existence of seasonal fluctuations in income and imperfect credit markets suggests that tied contracts should dominate casual labor markets. However, empirical observation from India suggests that this is far from being the case, and indeed, that there is a declining trend in labor tying. We consider a model that permits deviations ex-post from mutually agreed implicit contracts. In equilibrium, casual labor markets are always active despite the presence of seasonality, and a variety of implications are derived that link economic growth, changing information flows, and the decline of labor tying over time.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	207-239
Number of pages	33
Journal	Journal of Development Economics
Volume	47
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-3878(95)00011-E
State	Published - Aug 1995

Keywords

Agriculture
Implicit contracts
Labor tying
Rural labor markets
Seasonality

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Development
Economics and Econometrics

Access to Document

10.1016/0304-3878(95)00011-E

Cite this

@article{e25d0c8f025b4d0784693fbd579de00f,

title = "Labor tying",

abstract = "We study labor-tying in a competitive agricultural economy. The co-existence of seasonal fluctuations in income and imperfect credit markets suggests that tied contracts should dominate casual labor markets. However, empirical observation from India suggests that this is far from being the case, and indeed, that there is a declining trend in labor tying. We consider a model that permits deviations ex-post from mutually agreed implicit contracts. In equilibrium, casual labor markets are always active despite the presence of seasonality, and a variety of implications are derived that link economic growth, changing information flows, and the decline of labor tying over time.",

keywords = "Agriculture, Implicit contracts, Labor tying, Rural labor markets, Seasonality",

author = "Anindita Mukherjee and Debraj Ray",

note = "Funding Information: This work forms part of the first author's doctoral thesis, submitted to the Indian Statistical Institute. A first draft of the paper was written when Ray was at the Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi. He would like to thank the I.S.I. for its support. For the current draft, Mukherjee's research was supported by a McNa-mara Fellowship, and by the Institute for Economic Development, Boston University. We thank Dilip Mookherjee and two anonymous referees for helpful comments.",

year = "1995",

month = aug,

doi = "10.1016/0304-3878(95)00011-E",

language = "English (US)",

volume = "47",

pages = "207--239",

journal = "Journal of Development Economics",

issn = "0304-3878",

publisher = "Elsevier B.V.",

number = "2",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Labor tying

AU - Mukherjee, Anindita

AU - Ray, Debraj

N1 - Funding Information: This work forms part of the first author's doctoral thesis, submitted to the Indian Statistical Institute. A first draft of the paper was written when Ray was at the Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi. He would like to thank the I.S.I. for its support. For the current draft, Mukherjee's research was supported by a McNa-mara Fellowship, and by the Institute for Economic Development, Boston University. We thank Dilip Mookherjee and two anonymous referees for helpful comments.

PY - 1995/8

Y1 - 1995/8

N2 - We study labor-tying in a competitive agricultural economy. The co-existence of seasonal fluctuations in income and imperfect credit markets suggests that tied contracts should dominate casual labor markets. However, empirical observation from India suggests that this is far from being the case, and indeed, that there is a declining trend in labor tying. We consider a model that permits deviations ex-post from mutually agreed implicit contracts. In equilibrium, casual labor markets are always active despite the presence of seasonality, and a variety of implications are derived that link economic growth, changing information flows, and the decline of labor tying over time.

AB - We study labor-tying in a competitive agricultural economy. The co-existence of seasonal fluctuations in income and imperfect credit markets suggests that tied contracts should dominate casual labor markets. However, empirical observation from India suggests that this is far from being the case, and indeed, that there is a declining trend in labor tying. We consider a model that permits deviations ex-post from mutually agreed implicit contracts. In equilibrium, casual labor markets are always active despite the presence of seasonality, and a variety of implications are derived that link economic growth, changing information flows, and the decline of labor tying over time.

KW - Agriculture

KW - Implicit contracts

KW - Labor tying

KW - Rural labor markets

KW - Seasonality

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0029510548&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=0029510548&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/0304-3878(95)00011-E

DO - 10.1016/0304-3878(95)00011-E

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:0029510548

SN - 0304-3878

VL - 47

SP - 207

EP - 239

JO - Journal of Development Economics

JF - Journal of Development Economics

IS - 2

ER -

Labor tying

Abstract

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this