Showing 1 - 10 of 473
a static general equilibrium model to explore the relationships between high transportation costs, low productivity, and …-subsistence agriculture is highly sensitive both to agricultural productivity levels and to transportation costs. The model also suggests … positive complementarities between improvements in agricultural productivity and transportation. …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10008635911
We look at the effects of rainfall forecasts and realized rainfall on equilibrium agricultural wages over the course of the agricultural production cycle. We show theoretically that a forecast of good weather can lower wages in the planting stage, by lowering ex ante out-migration, and can...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010821686
increased fertilizer use has driven much of the productivity growth rather than the adoption of improvements in seeds and … revolution and point to the importance of taking into account farmer heterogeneity in estimating productivity and returns to …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10009652803
Economists devote too much attention to international flows of goods and services and not enough to international flows of ideas. Traditional trade flows are an imperfect substitute for flows of the underlying ideas. The simplest textbook trade model shows that a welfare-enhancing move toward...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10008619294
This paper builds a theory of the distribution of TFP across countries. The theory is based on the hypothesis that TFP improvements in a given country follow a Nelson-Phelps specification: they derive from past investments in the country itself and, through a spillover term, from past...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10008646477
Does the pattern of social connections between individuals matter for macroeconomic outcomes? If so, how does this effect operate and how big is it? Using network analysis tools, we explore how different social structures affect technology diffusion and thereby a country's rate of technological...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010583802
What obstacles prevent the most productive technologies from spreading to less developed economies from the world's technological frontier? In this paper, we seek to shed light on this question by quantifying the geographic and human barriers to the transmission of technologies. We argue that...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010821692
on productivity, or have operated indirectly as barriers to the diffusion of productivity-enhancing innovations across …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010785605
This paper investigates the dynamic impacts of cotton marketing reforms on farm output in rural Zambia. Following liberalization and the elimination of the Zambian cotton marketing board, the sector developed an outgrower scheme whereby cotton firms provided credit, access to inputs and output...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005105857
The federal government has developed a large number of programs to insure various "specialty crops" over the last two decades; a given program is peculiar to a particular county and crop. This development has been particularly notable in California, because of its size and the diversity of crops...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10008805813