This paper emphasizes the benefits of an agricultural strategy of development in developing countries. It begins by analyzing the close links between food and employment in the development process. In an underdeveloped country, food production is minimal, but demand is as well because of the small population growth. After development begins, income rises and food demand outstrips production....

Although it is often argued that liberalization provides opportunities for growth and development in all over the world, there are divergent views about the effects of agricultural trade liberalization on growth and income distribution in developing countries. The developing countries’ main complaint in this regard is that trade distorting activities in agriculture by developed countries advers...

It is argued that from the viewpoint of efficiency, agriculture should not be taxed relative to other sectors, and neither should it be favored. Nevertheless, developing countries have traditionally taxed the agricultural sector while developed countries have protected it, and both have incurred efficiency losses. Based on Schiff and Valdes (1992), it was shown that the taxation of agriculture ...

The Green Revolution Game is employed in teaching in various universities. Here we review employment in two universities: the Karlsruhe University in Germany and the Ohio University in the US. The game is used not only as simulation, but also as basis to generate data for study projects. In this context, several aspects will be followed: the analysis of education approaches (including between r...

This paper documents a significant impact of climate variation on urbanization in sub-Saharan Africa, primarily in arid countries. By lowering farm incomes, reduced moisture availability encourages migration to nearby cities, while wetter conditions slow it. The paper also provides evidence for ruralurban income linkages. In countries with a larger industrial base, reduced moisture shrinks the ...

Both economic theory and modern economic history show that productivity growth in non-agricultural sectors has consistently outweighed that of the agricultural sector. Thus, as development progresses, employment, which had been centered around the agricultural sector, becomes more and more dependent on the industrial and services sectors. This relationship between economic growth, and the move ...

This paper is intended to make a contribution to the empirical literature explaining the rise of unemployment since the 1970s in western economies by means of interactions between shocks and institutions. The contribution is twofold. First, the impact of a general feature of developed economies that has been surprisingly neglected in the literature is analyzed, namely, the employment shift from...

This technical note extends the model of Michaels et al. (2011) to introduce Eaton and Kortum (2002) heterogeneity within each sector, which facilitates a tractable analysis of bilateral transport costs. We show how the resulting model can be calibrated using data on employment by sector and location to determine productivity in each sector and location. We undertake this calibration for each y...

The implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in India in 2006, has voiced concerns about the possible adverse impact on agriculture due to a shortage of casual labour in the agriculture sector and an unfavourable shift in cropping patterns. At the same time, MGNREGA is also associated with investments in rural infrastructure. The scheme especially f...