Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/98361 
Year of Publication: 
2004
Series/Report no.: 
Center Discussion Paper No. 899
Publisher: 
Yale University, Economic Growth Center, New Haven, CT
Abstract: 
This paper examines the effect of agricultural development on a country's overall development and growth experience. In most poor countries, large fractions of land, labor, and other productive resources are devoted to producing food for subsistence needs. This 'food problem' can delay a country's industrial development for a long period of time, causing its per capita income to fall far behind the world leader. Once industrialization begins, this trend is reversed. The extent to which a country catches up to the leader depends primarily on factors that affect productivity in non- agricultural activities: agricultural productivity is thus largely irrelevant in the very long run. But in the short run, a country that experiences large improvements in agricultural productivity (due to, say, a Green Revolution) will experience a rapid increase in its income relative to the leaders.
Subjects: 
Agriculture
Economic Growth
Subsistence
Food Problem
Agricultural Technology
Long-run Growth
JEL: 
E13
O40
O41
Q10
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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