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Forms of property rights or class capacities: The example of Tuscan sharecropping

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Rebecca Jean Emigh
Rebecca Jean Emigh
Affiliation:
University of California, (Los Angeles).
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Abstract

This paper criticizes the economic perspective that property rights determine economic outcomes, by examining sharecropping, because this form of property right can be associated with remarkably different economic outcomes. In particular, drawing on evidence from fifteenth-century Tuscany, it is argued that landlords' and tenants' class capacities explain sharecropping's variability. The results show that Tuscan sharecropping was efficient and contractual, because the difference in landlords' and tenants' class capacity was relatively small.

L'article critique la perspective économique selon laquelle la forme prise par les droits de propriété déterminerait les résultats économiques. Une étude de cas sur la Toscane du xvʿ siècle montre que des éléments liés aux appartenances de classe rendent compte de la variabilité du métayage. En Toscane, il était efficace et contractuel parce que la différence sociale entre propriétaires et tenanciers était relativement faible.

Diese Studie kritisiert die wirtschaftliche Sichtweise, laut der die Form der Besitzstandsrechte die wirtschaftlichen Ergebnisse bestimmt. Eine Fallstudie in der Toskana des 15. Jahrhunderts zeigt, dass die Klassenzugehörigkeit für die Veränderlichkeit der Pachtverhältnisse seht. Die Ergebnisse lassen erkennen, dass das toskanische Pachtsystem effizient und vertraglich war, weil die Unterschiede zwischen Grundbesitzer und den Pächtern verhältnissmäßig gering waren.

Type
Research Article
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , May 2000 , pp. 22 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 2000

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