Competition and Custom in Economic Contracts: A Case Study of Illinois Agriculture
调查数据显示农业分成合同比经济基本面所保证的更统一。本文提出一个动态合同选择模型，考虑预期收益和当地习俗，用统计力学方法分析，预测合同条款在区域间均匀但边界处突变，并被伊利诺伊州农业合同数据验证。
Survey data suggest that cropsharing contracts exhibit a much higher degree of uniformity than is warranted by economic fundamentals. We propose a dynamic model of contract choice to explain this phenomenon. Landowners and tenants recontract periodically, taking into account expected returns as well as conformity with local practice. The resulting stochastic dynamical system is studied using techniques from statistical mechanics. The most likely states consist of patches where contractual terms are nearly uniform, separated by boundaries where the terms shift abruptly. These and other predictions of the model are borne out by survey data on agricultural contracts in Illinois.