In cooperative property rights systems workers jointly own and manage production, whereas in outside ownership systems, an owner contracts laborers. Despite a rich theoretical literature on how the organization of property rights affects production, there is little causal evidence on the productivity implications of cooperative property rights. During a land reform in El Salvador in 1980, properties owned by individuals with cumulative landholdings over 500 hectares were reorganized into cooperatives managed by the former hacienda workers. Properties belonging to individuals with less than 500 hectares remained as privately-owned haciendas. Using the discontinuous probability of a property being becoming a cooperative and regression discontinuity design, I present causal evidence on the effects of cooperative property rights relative to outside ownership on agricultural productivity and economic development. The reform cooperatives are (i) less likely to produce cash crops and more likely to produce staple crops; (ii) less productive when producing cash crops; but (iii) more productive when producing staple crops. Additionally, cooperatives have more equitable worker income distributions and higher incomes relative to hacienda workers. The results are consistent with an incomplete contracting model comparing cooperatives and haciendas.
Between 1921 and 1956, French colonial governments organized medical campaigns to treat and prevent sleeping sickness. Villagers were forcibly examined and injected with medications with severe, sometimes fatal, side effects. We digitized thirty years of archival records to document the locations of campaign visits at a granular geographic level for five central African countries. We find that greater historical exposure to the campaigns reduces trust in medicine – measured by willingness to consent to a free, non-invasive blood test. The resulting mistrust is specific to the medical sector. We examine relevance for present day health initiatives; we find that World Bank projects in the health sector are less successful in areas with greater exposure to the campaigns.
All major colonial powers granted concessions to private compa-nies to extract natural resources during the colonial era. Within Africa, theseconcessions were characterized by (i) violence and (ii) the co-option of localleaders. We use the arbitrarily defined borders of concessions granted in thenorth of the Congo Free State to examine the causal effects of this form ofeconomic organization on cultural and institutional outcomes. Using surveyand experimental data from individuals near a former concession boundary,we find that individuals from the concessions are more pro-social, but that localleaders provide fewer public goods and are less likely to be elected. Finally,we examine the effects on economic development. Historical exposure to theconcessions has led to worse present day economic outcomes in the northernconcessions and for all concessions in Congo. This has broad implications forthe large parts of colonized countries that were allocated to private concessions.
Revision Requested, Quarterly Journal of Economics
