Labor Supervision and Institutional Conditions: Evidence from Bicol Rice Farms

Abstract

This article analyzes labor supervision activities reported in a survey of rice farmers in the Bicol region of the Philippines. We present a theoretical model that relates supervision intensity to institutional conditions. We estimate a supervision intensity equation and control for the decision to hire labor, the decision to supervise hired labor, and the type of the labor contract. The empirical estimates use different village-level spatial and demographic indicators as proxies for institutional conditions. The results are consistent with the prediction of the theoretical model that supervision increases with weaker institutional conditions. Copyright 2006, Oxford University Press.

Off‐farm work, technical efficiency, and rice production risk in Taiwan

“…Our results indicate that the elasticities of the hired labor for farmers without and with off‐farm work are 0.048 and 0.042, respectively. Since it is believed that supervision may improve the productivity of hired labor (e.g., Desilva et al, 2006; Eswaram and Kotwal, 1985; Taslim, 1989), our finding of a lower elasticity of the hired labor among the off‐farm‐work farmers may reflect the fact that this group of farmers may have weaker ability or spend less time supervising their hired workers.…”

Economic role of education in agriculture: evidence from rural Vietnam

“…Consequently, the cognitive effect of education raises output given a certain amount of inputs. Education also has a noncognitive effect that changes farmers' attitudes and preferences with respect to the utilization of inputs, especially hired labors who are normally prone to moral hazard since wages are often predetermined while their work effort is not be fully observable, verifiable and enforceable due to information asymmetry (Foster and Rosenzweig, 1994;DeSilva et al, 2006). As such, education improves the allocative efficiency via the greater propensity to select inputs of higher productivity.…”

Access to Markets and Farm Efficiency: A Study of Rice Farms in the Bicol Region, Philippines

“…For example, spot markets for labor are subject to high transaction costs in rural labor markets where "institutions such as labor and contract law and formal employment assistance mechanism are not in place" (DeSilva, Evenson, and Kimhi 2006, 851). In an analysis of the same Bicol villages that are the subject of the present study, DeSilva, Evenson, and Kimhi (2006) find that farmers engage in the costly activity of directly supervising hired labor more intensively in villages that are less urbanized and located far from the market towns.…”

“…This paper presents an empirical investigation of the relationship between the spread, spatially and temporally, of market institutions and improvements in the productivity and efficiency of rice farmers over a period of two decades. The analysis synthesizes two lines of research on developing agricultural economies that have benefitted greatly from the contributions of Professor Robert Evenson over four decades: 1) the investigation of the causes and consequences of transaction costs and dysfunctional markets (Evenson and Roumasset 1986;Lanzona and Evenson 1997;DeSilva, Evenson, and Kimhi 2006;Naseer, Evenson, and DeSilva 2007), and 2) the analysis of the determinants of farm productivity and efficiency (Rosegrant and Evenson 1992;Bravo-Ureta and Evenson 1994;Evenson and Mwabu 2001).…”