Agriculture and National Welfare Around the World

Agriculture and National Welfare Around the World PDF Author: Claudio Bravo-Ortega
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN:
Category : Agriculture
Languages : en
Pages : 51

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Book Description
"Calculations of marginal welfare effects suggest that agricultural development has had important positive effects on national welfare, especially in developing countries. Latin American and Caribbean countries have also benefited from agricultural growth, but nonagricultural production has had marginal welfare effects that are greater in magnitude than those provided by agricultural activities. In contrast, the industrialized, high-income countries experienced marginal welfare gains from nonagricultural activities that are much greater than those derived from agriculture, whose impact is actually negative. These calculations of marginal welfare effects across regions depend on econometric estimates of elasticities linking agricultural and nonagricultural economic activities to four elements in a national welfare function: national GDP per capita, average income of the poorest households within countries, environmental outcomes concerning air and water pollution and deforestation, and macroeconomic volatility. The econometric analyses are motivated by theoretical treatments of key issues. The empirical models are estimated with various econometric techniques that deal with issues of causality and international heterogeneity. This paper--a product of the Office of the Chief Economist, Latin America and the Caribbean Region--is part of a larger effort in the region to study the rural contribution to development"--World Bank web site.

Agriculture and National Welfare Around the World

Agriculture and National Welfare Around the World PDF Author: Claudio Bravo-Ortega
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN:
Category : Agriculture
Languages : en
Pages : 51

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Book Description
"Calculations of marginal welfare effects suggest that agricultural development has had important positive effects on national welfare, especially in developing countries. Latin American and Caribbean countries have also benefited from agricultural growth, but nonagricultural production has had marginal welfare effects that are greater in magnitude than those provided by agricultural activities. In contrast, the industrialized, high-income countries experienced marginal welfare gains from nonagricultural activities that are much greater than those derived from agriculture, whose impact is actually negative. These calculations of marginal welfare effects across regions depend on econometric estimates of elasticities linking agricultural and nonagricultural economic activities to four elements in a national welfare function: national GDP per capita, average income of the poorest households within countries, environmental outcomes concerning air and water pollution and deforestation, and macroeconomic volatility. The econometric analyses are motivated by theoretical treatments of key issues. The empirical models are estimated with various econometric techniques that deal with issues of causality and international heterogeneity. This paper--a product of the Office of the Chief Economist, Latin America and the Caribbean Region--is part of a larger effort in the region to study the rural contribution to development"--World Bank web site.

Agriculture and National Welfare Around the World

Agriculture and National Welfare Around the World PDF Author: Claudio Bravo-Ortega
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Calculations of marginal welfare effects suggest that agricultural development has had important positive effects on national welfare, especially in developing countries. Latin American and Caribbean countries have also benefited from agricultural growth, but non-agricultural production has had marginal welfare effects that are greater in magnitude than those provided by agricultural activities. In contrast, the industrialized, high-income countries experienced marginal welfare gains from non-agricultural activities that are much greater than those derived from agriculture, whose impact is actually negative. These calculations of marginal welfare effects across regions depend on econometric estimates of elasticities linking agricultural and nonagricultural economic activities to four elements in a national welfare function: national GDP per capita, average income of the poorest households within countries, environmental outcomes concerning air and water pollution and deforestation, and macroeconomic volatility. The econometric analyses are motivated by theoretical treatments of key issues. The empirical models are estimated with various econometric techniques that deal with issues of causality and international heterogeneity.

Policy Research Working Papers

Policy Research Working Papers PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Developing countries
Languages : en
Pages : 60

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Book Description


Reducing Distortions to Agricultural Incentives

Reducing Distortions to Agricultural Incentives PDF Author: Kym Anderson
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN:
Category : Agribusiness
Languages : en
Pages : 35

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Book Description
Most of the world's poorest people depend on farming for their livelihood. Earnings from farming in low-income countries are depressed partly due to a pro-urban bias in own-country policies, and partly because richer countries (including some developing countries) favor their farmers with import barriers and subsidies. Both sets of policies reduce national and global economic growth and add to inequality and poverty in developing countries. Acknowledgement of that since the 1980s has given rise to greater pressures for reform, both internal and external. Over the past two decades numerous developing country governments have reduced their sectoral and trade policy distortions, while many high-income countries continue with protectionist policies that harm developing country exports of farm products. Recent research suggests that the agricultural protectionist policies of high-income countries reduce welfare in many developing countries. Most of those studies also suggest that full global liberalization of merchandise trade would raise value added in agriculture in developing country regions, and that much of the benefit from global reform would come not just from reform in high-income countries but also from liberalization among developing countries, including in many cases own-country reform. These findings raise three key questions that are addressed in this paper: To what extent have the reforms of the past two decades succeeded in reducing distortions to agricultural incentives? Do current policy distortions still discriminate against farmers in low-income countries? And what are the prospects for further reform in the next decade or so?

Impacts of agricultural investments on growth and poverty: A review of literature

Impacts of agricultural investments on growth and poverty: A review of literature PDF Author: Martin, Will
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 39

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Book Description
Agricultural development is crucial in developing countries, and particularly in the poorest countries where it accounts for large shares of employment and income and whose poverty is due simply to having a large share of the workforce in low-productivity agriculture. Raising productivity in agriculture is critically important for development, as is smoothly moving workers out of agriculture into more productive employment in other sectors. Raising agricultural productivity helps both to raise incomes and to reduce poverty-both by raising the incomes of poor people working in agriculture and by lowering the prices of foods that make up a disproportionately large share of the expenditures of poor people. In small and open economies, the in-crease in profitability of agriculture following improvements in productivity might tend to retain or even attract workers into agriculture. By contrast, at a global level, or at national level when policy focusses on self-sufficiency, improvements in agricultural productivity will free up labor for employment in other sectors. Incomes are generally much higher in non-agricultural work in developing countries-more than double those in agriculture after careful adjustment for key differences. This raises the possibility of a double dividend from structural transformation as workers move into higher-productivity activities. A key question for development policy is whether it is enough to simply evaluate the gains from higher productivity within agriculture, or whether potential benefits from structural change be included as well. This paper examines the arguments on this question. It concludes that these dividends may be substantial-but whether they are or not depends on the source of the initial differences in productivity and on the direction of movement when agricultural productivity rises. If it results from policy barriers such as restrictions on the transfer of farmland or requirements for residence permits in urban areas, there are likely to be substantial welfare gains when labor moves out of agriculture. They may also be substantial if urban wages are artificially high and attract substantial numbers of job-waiters into unemployment. However, these gains may be illusory if the income gaps arise primarily from differences in skills or from reluctance to move created by asset fixity.

Welfare and Poverty Effects of Global Agricultural and Trade Policies Using the Linkage Model

Welfare and Poverty Effects of Global Agricultural and Trade Policies Using the Linkage Model PDF Author: Kym Anderson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
This paper analyzes the economic effects of agricultural price and merchandise trade policies around the world as of 2004 on global markets, net farm incomes, and national and regional economic welfare and poverty, using the global economy wide Linkage model, new estimates of agricultural price distortions for developing countries, and poverty elasticity's approach. It addresses two questions: to what extent are policies as of 2004 still reducing rewards from farming in developing countries and thereby adding to inequality across countries in farm household incomes? Are they depressing value added more in primary agriculture than in the rest of the economy of developing countries, and earnings of unskilled workers more than of owners of other factors of production, thereby potentially contributing to inequality and poverty within developing countries (given that farm incomes are well below non-farm incomes in most developing countries and that agriculture there is intensive in the use of unskilled labor)? Results are presented for the key countries and regions of the world and for the world as a whole. They reveal that, by moving to free markets, income inequality between countries will be reduced at least slightly, all but one-sixth of the gains to developing countries will come from agricultural policy reform, unskilled workers in developing countries the majority of whom work on farms will benefit most from reform, net farm incomes in developing countries will rise by 6 percent compared with 2 percent for non-agricultural value added, and the number of people surviving on less than USD 1 a day will drop 3 percent globally.

The Role Of Markets In The World Food Economy

The Role Of Markets In The World Food Economy PDF Author: D. Gale Johnson
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1000233421
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
This book extends the discussion of world food problems by giving explicit recognition to the potential role of markets. The authors highlight the contribution of prices to the solution of food problems in low-income countries, for example, by providing adequate incentives to farmers to expand production, assuring that food supplies can be obtained through trade when needed and giving appropriate signals to consumers. They also document the negative effects on food supply and national welfare of the actual price policies of many Third World governments. While recognizing the problems involved in defining and measuring hunger, as well as in improving the food supply, the authors consider the outlook for future food availability as favorable in terms of continued modest improvement in per capita food supplies at prices, adjusted for inflation, that are likely to continue the slow decline of recent decades. One focus of their comments is the positive roles that governments can and should play in the world food economy, especially in support of research, creation of human capital, and provision of appropriate rural infrastructure.

Farmers on Welfare

Farmers on Welfare PDF Author: Ann-Christina L. Knudsen
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801457653
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 365

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Book Description
In 2007 the farm subsidies of the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy took over 40 percent of the entire EU budget. How did a sector of diminishing social and economic importance manage to maintain such political prominence? The conventional answer focuses on the negotiations among the member states of the European Community from 1958 onwards. That story holds that the political priority, given to the CAP, as well as its long-term stability, resides in a basic devil's bargain between French agriculture and German industry. In Farmers on Welfare, a landmark new account of the making of the single largest European policy ever, Ann-Christina L. Knudsen suggests that this accepted narrative is rather too neat. In particular, she argues, it neglects how a broad agreement was made in the 1960s that related to national welfare state policies aiming to improve incomes for farmers. Drawing on extensive archival research from a variety of political actors across the Community, she illustrates how and why this supranational farm regime was created in the 1960s, and also provides us with a detailed narrative history of how national and European administrations gradually learned about this kind of cooperation.By tracing how the farm welfare objective was gradually implemented in other common policies, Knudsen offers an alternative account of European integration history.

The Uruguay Round and Welfare in Some Distorted Agricultural Economies

The Uruguay Round and Welfare in Some Distorted Agricultural Economies PDF Author: James E. Anderson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Agriculture
Languages : en
Pages : 44

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Book Description
There is widespread concern that the Uruguay Round may reduce the welfare of developing countries through its effect on world agricultural prices. Reduced agricultural price distortions among major supplying nations are predicted to increase basic food prices and decrease some important export prices such as those for coffee and cotton. It appears that raising food prices paid by food importers must be bad for them, while reducing world coffee and cotton prices appears bad for exporters of those products. Appearances may be deceiving, however, since theory shows that a distortion effect operates alongside the standard terms of trade effect. I report here distortion effects which are many times larger" than terms of trade effects in an analysis of the Uruguay Round's impact on 9 agricultural economies. I deploy a simple Computable General Equilibrium model. The 9 developing economies are distorted by domestic agricultural distortions in 15 markets, along with hundreds of 4 digit nonagricultural tariffs and quotas. In 3 of 9 countries, the distortion effect reverses the impact of the terms of trade effect. In 2 other countries the distortion effect raises a trivial terms of trade effect up to around 1% of national income.

Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century

Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century PDF Author: Committee on Twenty-First Century Systems Agriculture
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780309387439
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 598

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Book Description
In the last 20 years, there has been a remarkable emergence of innovations and technological advances that are generating promising changes and opportunities for sustainable agriculture, yet at the same time the agricultural sector worldwide faces numerous daunting challenges. Not only is the agricultural sector expected to produce adequate food, fiber, and feed, and contribute to biofuels to meet the needs of a rising global population, it is expected to do so under increasingly scarce natural resources and climate change. Growing awareness of the unintended impacts associated with some agricultural production practices has led to heightened societal expectations for improved environmental, community, labor, and animal welfare standards in agriculture. Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century assesses the scientific evidence for the strengths and weaknesses of different production, marketing, and policy approaches for improving and reducing the costs and unintended consequences of agricultural production. It discusses the principles underlying farming systems and practices that could improve the sustainability. It also explores how those lessons learned could be applied to agriculture in different regional and international settings, with an emphasis on sub-Saharan Africa. By focusing on a systems approach to improving the sustainability of U.S. agriculture, this book can have a profound impact on the development and implementation of sustainable farming systems. Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century serves as a valuable resource for policy makers, farmers, experts in food production and agribusiness, and federal regulatory agencies.