Abstract: In this book, the authors theorize about the rationale and consequences of some economic institutions and contractual arrangements that are particularly predominant in poor agrarian economies. The models illustrate how some of the tools of advanced economic theory can be fruitfully used in understanding the aspects of age-old agrarian institutions (like sharecropping, labour contracts, interlinked economic arrangements straddling labour, land, credit and product markets, producer and credit cooperatives, risk-sharing institutions, etc.).

Keywords: adverse selection, agrarian economies, bargaining, bonded labour, contracts, credit rationing, insurance, moral hazard, principal-agent model, sharecropping