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The price of improvements: agrarian contracts and agrarian development in nineteenth‐century eastern Spain 1
Author(s) -
GARRIDO SAMUEL,
CALATAYUD SALVADOR
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
the economic history review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.014
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1468-0289
pISSN - 0013-0117
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0289.2009.00521.x
Subject(s) - agrarian society , arrears , payment , value (mathematics) , business , agrarian system , compensation (psychology) , economics , market economy , economy , agriculture , finance , geography , psychology , archaeology , machine learning , computer science , psychoanalysis
Fixed‐rent contracts do not free landlords from the need to supervise the land if it is of high value and fragile fertility, nor do they free them from the costs of monitoring farmers if they are poor peasants prone to fall into arrears. In such cases, however, compensation for improvements will encourage tenants to farm with care and act as a bond against non‐payment of rent. This article studies the repercussions of these kinds of situations by analysing what happened in nineteenth‐century Valencia, where being the owners of the improvements led to tenants eventually becoming the owners of the land.