Market structure, outgrower contracts, and farm output. Evidence from cotton reforms in Zambia
研究了赞比亚棉花营销改革对农场产出的动态影响，发现外包合同失败时农民退回自给农业、产量下降，合同改进后经济作物面积和产出显著增加。
This paper investigates the dynamic impacts of cotton marketing reforms on farm output in rural Zambia. Following liberalization and the elimination of the Zambian cotton marketing board, the sector developed an outgrower scheme whereby cotton firms provided credit, access to inputs and output markets, and technical assistance to the farmers. There are two distinctive phases of the reforms: a failure of the outgrower contracts, due to farmers' debt renegation, firm hold up, and lack of coordination among firms and farms, and a subsequent period of success of the scheme, due to enhanced contract enforcement and commitment. We find interesting dynamics in the sector. During the phase of failure, farmers were pushed back into subsistence and cotton yields per hectare declined. With the improvement of the outgrower scheme, farmers devoted larger shares of land to cash crops, and farm output significantly increased. Copyright 2011 Oxford University Press 2011 All rights reserved, Oxford University Press.