The Vietnamese government is currently attempting to upgrade rice value chains in the Mekong River Delta by encouraging (i) vertical coordination between exporters and farmers through contract farming, and (ii) horizontal coordination among farmers through the “small farmers, large field” program. Previous studies on the determinants of contract farming participation assume that firms offer only a single contract type, whereas in reality, farmers may face a continuum of exclusive contract options.

We assess the extent of access and degree of participation by smallholder tenants in the land rental market in Malawi. Our study is based on three rounds of nationally representative Living Standards Measurement Surveys collected in 2010, 2013 and 2016, from which we construct a balanced panel. We apply the transaction cost theory, which suggests transaction costs to be non-linear and depend on resource as well as socioeconomic characteristics within the customary tenure system that determines who hold, use and transfer land.