Efficiency Differentials in Peasant Agriculture and Their Implications for Development Policies

Efficiency Differentials in Peasant Agriculture and Their Implications for Development Policies PDF Author: Kenneth H. Shapiro
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Agriculture
Languages : en
Pages : 22

Get Book Here

Book Description
This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical work on allocative efficiency in traditional agriculture and presents a new study of technical efficiency among Tanzanian cotton farmers. The theoretical arguments are shown to apply primarily in a competitive context that differs significantly from that in which peasant farms operate. Reanalysis of earlier empirical studies shows that, on average, the marginal value products of inputs differ by more than 40 percent from the marginal factor costs to which they should be equated under allocative efficiency. Our own study among Tanzanian cotton farmers in Geita District reveals that output could be increased by 51 percent if all farmers achieved those levels of technical efficiency that were in fact achieved by the best farmers in the sample using the same inputs and technologies that the less efficient used. These results indicate that the efficiency hypothesis may not be applicable to much of peasant agriculture and that development policies might fruitfully place more emphasis on raising large numbers of farmers closer to the relatively high efficiency levels achieved by some of their neighbors.

Efficiency Differentials in Peasant Agriculture and Their Implications for Development Policies

Efficiency Differentials in Peasant Agriculture and Their Implications for Development Policies PDF Author: Kenneth H. Shapiro
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Agriculture
Languages : en
Pages : 22

Get Book Here

Book Description
This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical work on allocative efficiency in traditional agriculture and presents a new study of technical efficiency among Tanzanian cotton farmers. The theoretical arguments are shown to apply primarily in a competitive context that differs significantly from that in which peasant farms operate. Reanalysis of earlier empirical studies shows that, on average, the marginal value products of inputs differ by more than 40 percent from the marginal factor costs to which they should be equated under allocative efficiency. Our own study among Tanzanian cotton farmers in Geita District reveals that output could be increased by 51 percent if all farmers achieved those levels of technical efficiency that were in fact achieved by the best farmers in the sample using the same inputs and technologies that the less efficient used. These results indicate that the efficiency hypothesis may not be applicable to much of peasant agriculture and that development policies might fruitfully place more emphasis on raising large numbers of farmers closer to the relatively high efficiency levels achieved by some of their neighbors.

Efficiency Differentials in Peasant Agriculture and Their Implications for Development Policies

Efficiency Differentials in Peasant Agriculture and Their Implications for Development Policies PDF Author: Kenneth H. Shapiro
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Agriculture
Languages : en
Pages : 22

Get Book Here

Book Description
This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical work on allocative efficiency in traditional agriculture and presents a new study of technical efficiency among Tanzanian cotton farmers. The theoretical arguments are shown to apply primarily in a competitive context that differs significantly from that in which peasant farms operate. Reanalysis of earlier empirical studies shows that, on average, the marginal value products of inputs differ by more than 40 percent from the marginal factor costs to which they should be equated under allocative efficiency. Our own study among Tanzanian cotton farmers in Geita District reveals that output could be increased by 51 percent if all farmers achieved those levels of technical efficiency that were in fact achieved by the best farmers in the sample using the same inputs and technologies that the less efficient used. These results indicate that the efficiency hypothesis may not be applicable to much of peasant agriculture and that development policies might fruitfully place more emphasis on raising large numbers of farmers closer to the relatively high efficiency levels achieved by some of their neighbors.

Peasant Economics

Peasant Economics PDF Author: Frank Ellis
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521457118
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 332

Get Book Here

Book Description
This is a revised and expanded edition of a popular textbook on the economics of farm households in developing countries. The second edition retains the same building blocks designed to explore household decision-making in a social context. Key topics are efficiency, risk, time allocation, gender, agrarian contracts, farm size and technological change. For these and other topics, household economic behaviour represents the outcome of social interactions within the household, and market interactions outside the household. A new chapter on the environment combines exposition of economic tools not previously covered in the book with examination of household and community decision-making in relation to environmental resources.

Farm Management In Peasant Agriculture

Farm Management In Peasant Agriculture PDF Author: Michael Collinson
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 0429696272
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 484

Get Book Here

Book Description
First published in 1972, Farm Management in Peasant Agriculture remains the only detailed discussion of on-site research techniques for economists working on the development of small-holder agriculture in Africa. Part 1 describes the conditions of the agricultural sector within which the African peasant farmer must operate, and then outlines an approach to farm management tailored to those conditions. Part 2 sets out the research planning and investigation tasks implied by the approach. Survey techniques, as well as the value of a pre-survey for understanding general attributes of a farm system, are reviewed, and alternative data-collection methods are elaborated. Part 3 shows how research data can be used in planning content for extension programs. Dr. Collinson concludes with the details of a planning method that interpolates changes in farm practice into a model of the existing farm system and that projects a sequence of changes, representing a sequence of extension content, on the basis of farmer acceptability.

Production Frontiers

Production Frontiers PDF Author: Rolf Fare
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521420334
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 326

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book presents a mathematical programming approach to the analysis of production frontiers and efficiency measurement. The authors construct a variety of production frontiers, and by measuring distances to them are able to develop a model of efficient producer behaviour and a taxonomy of possible types of departure from efficiency in various environments. Linear programming is used as an analytical and computational technique in order to accomplish this. The approach developed is then applied to modelling producer behaviour. By focusing on the empirical relevance of production frontiers and distances to them, and applying linear programming techniques to artificial data to illustrate the type of information they can generate, this book provides a unique study in applied production analysis. It will be of interest to scholars and students of economics and operations research, and analysts in business and government.

Foreign Affairs Research Papers Available

Foreign Affairs Research Papers Available PDF Author: Foreign Affairs Research Documentation Center
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Economic history
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Get Book Here

Book Description


Country Case Study

Country Case Study PDF Author:
Publisher: WorldFish
ISBN: 9832346703
Category : Aquaculture
Languages : en
Pages : 85

Get Book Here

Book Description


Contributed Papers Read at the 16th International Conference of Agricultural Economists

Contributed Papers Read at the 16th International Conference of Agricultural Economists PDF Author: International Association of Agricultural Economists
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Agriculture
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Get Book Here

Book Description


Poverty in Contemporary Economic Thought

Poverty in Contemporary Economic Thought PDF Author: Mats Lundahl
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000368297
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 216

Get Book Here

Book Description
Poverty in Contemporary Economic Thought aims to describe and critically examine how economic thought deals with poverty, including its causes, consequences, reduction and abolition. This edited volume traces the ideas of key writers and schools of modern economic thought across a significant period, ranging from Friedrich Hayek and Keynes to latter-day economists like Amartya Sen and Angus Deaton. The chapters relate poverty to income distribution, asserting the point that poverty is not always conceived of in absolute terms but that relative and social deprivation matters also. Furthermore, the contributors deal with both individual poverty and the poverty of nations in the context of the international economy. In providing such a thorough exploration, this book shows that the approach to poverty differs from economist to economist depending on their particular interests and the main issues related to poverty in each epoch, as well as the influence of the intellectual climate that prevailed at the time when the contribution was made. This key text is valuable reading for advanced students and researchers of the history of economic thought, economic development and the economics of poverty.

Rural Development Abstracts

Rural Development Abstracts PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Rural development
Languages : en
Pages : 1186

Get Book Here

Book Description