A two-sector Ramsey-type model of growth is developed to investigate the relationship between agricultural productivity and economy-wide growth. The framework takes into account the peculiarities of agriculture both in production (reliance on a fixed natural resource base) and in consumption...

The paper presents an endogenous growth model where the level of international transaction costs may be decisive for whether the relatively poor East specializes in agriculture production, imitates goods from the rich West, or makes its own innovations. The author shows that the East produces...