The summary statistics of the variables used are reported in Table 1 for the entire sample as well
as by type of farmer, i.e. self-cultivators, fixed-rent tenants, sharecroppers etc. Both the land extent and
the land-to-family labor ratio converge with land leasing [figures 5 and 6]. Interestingly, the average farm
size of fixed-rent tenants is considerably larger than that of sharecroppers and self-cultivators. Fixed-rent
tenants are also strikingly similar to landlords in terms of the education of the household head, non-
agricultural earnings, and the market-orientation of production. The distinguishing characteristic between
landlords, on the one hand, and tenants, on the other, lies in the demographic characteristics. A
significantly larger proportion of tenant households is headed by a male, and has a somewhat larger
proportion of adult males than landlord households. Both types of tenant households have similar
demographics, and landlords stand out primarily due to their larger proportion of elders.
The preliminary look at the data reveals the following testable propositions: 1) land leasing is used
to equate land-to-family labor ratios across households; 2) the adjustment through the land leasing market
is imperfect and different for landlords and tenants; 3) land scarce households that are otherwise endowed
with resources similar to the landlords lease-in large amounts of land as fixed-rent tenants; 4) land-scarce
households that do not have the resource characteristics of the landlords lease-in smaller extents of land as
sharecroppers, and finally; 5) low levels of managerial and entrepreneurial skills distinguishes
sharecroppers from landlords and fixed-rent tenants.
5. Results
Estimation of the Skill Index
Table 2 reports the results of stochastic production frontier and technical efficiency equations that
are used to construct the skill index. As explained earlier, these estimates are carried out only for the self-
cultivators in order to obtain consistent predicted skill values. The first column reports the joint maximum
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