A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• Moral Hazard

  2019. Konrad B. Burchardi (et al.). Quarterly Journal of Economics 134 (1), 281-347

  Article

  Agricultural productivity is particularly low in developing countries. Output-sharing rules that make farmers less-than-full residual claimants are seen as a potentially important driver of low agricultural productivity. We report results from a field experiment designed to estimate and understand the effects of sharecropping contracts on agricultural input choices, risk-taking, and output. The experiment induced variation in the terms of sharecropping contracts. After agreeing to pay 50% of their output to the landlord, tenants were randomized into three groups: (i) some kept 50% of their output; (ii) others kept 75%; (iii) others kept 50% of output and received a lump-sum payment at the end of their contract, either fixed or stochastic. We find that tenants with higher output shares used more inputs, cultivated riskier crops, and produced 60% more output relative to control. Income or risk exposure have at most a small effect on farm output; the increase in output should be interpreted as an incentive effect of the output-sharing rule. JEL Codes: O12, Q12, Q15.

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• Migrants, Ancestors, and Foreign Investments

  2019. Konrad B. Burchardi, Thomas Chaney, Tarek A. Hassan. The Review of Economic Studies 86 (4), 1448-1486

  Article

  We use 130 years of data on historical migrations to the U.S. to show a causal effect of the ancestry composition of U.S. counties on foreign direct investment (FDI) sent and received by local firms. To isolate the causal effect of ancestry on FDI, we build a simple reduced-form model of migrations: Migrations from a foreign country to a U.S. county at a given time depend on (1) a push factor, causing emigration from that foreign country to the entire U.S., and (2) a pull factor, causing immigration from all origins into that U.S. county. The interaction between time-series variation in origin-specific push factors and destination-specific pull factors generates quasi-random variation in the allocation of migrants across U.S. counties. We find that doubling the number of residents with ancestry from a given foreign country relative to the mean increases the probability that at least one local firm engages in FDI with that country by 4 percentage points. We present evidence that this effect is primarily driven by a reduction in information frictions, and not by better contract enforcement, taste similarities, or a convergence in factor endowments.

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Show all publications by Konrad Burchardi at Stockholm University