IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hai/wpaper/200702.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Population and Agricultural Development

Author

Listed:
  • James Roumasset

    (Department of Economics, University of Hawaii at Manoa)

Abstract

Thinking about population as a driver of agricultural development provides insights into induced technical and institutional change, whether it be Esther Boserup's declining fallow period, modern crop varieties, or the specialization pyramid that arises in labor-intensive agriculture. The non-convexities of research and development, infrastructure investments, and specialization imply that modest population pressure does not necessarily exert downward pressure on wages. As agricultural growth stimulates industrialization, the non-convexities of specialization become ever more compact. The combination of these and the increased demand for human capital, if not inhibited by policy failures, tends to promote a virtuous circle of human progress.

Suggested Citation

  • James Roumasset, 2007. "Population and Agricultural Development," Working Papers 200702, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hai:wpaper:200702
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.economics.hawaii.edu/research/workingpapers/WP_07-2.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2007
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Prabhu Pingali, 2007. "Agricultural growth and economic development: a view through the globalization lens," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 37(s1), pages 1-12, December.
    2. Kenneth Arrow & Partha Dasgupta & Lawrence Goulder & Gretchen Daily & Paul Ehrlich & Geoffrey Heal & Simon Levin & Karl-Göran Mäler & Stephen Schneider & David Starrett & Brian Walker, 2004. "Are We Consuming Too Much?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(3), pages 147-172, Summer.
    3. Evenson, Robert E, 2004. "Food and Population: D. Gale Johnson and the Green Revolution," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(3), pages 543-569, April.
    4. James Roumasset, 2004. "Rural Institutions, Agricultural Development, and Pro-Poor Economic Growth," Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development, Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), vol. 1(1), pages 61-82, June.
    5. Barrett, Scott, 1991. "Optimal soil conservation and the reform of agricultural pricing policies," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 167-187, October.
    6. Barrett, C. B. & Reardon, T. & Webb, P., 2001. "Nonfarm income diversification and household livelihood strategies in rural Africa: concepts, dynamics, and policy implications," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 315-331, August.
    7. Gregory Clark, 2007. "Introduction to A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World," Introductory Chapters, in: A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World, Princeton University Press.
    8. Krautkraemer, Jeffrey A., 1994. "Population growth, soil fertility, and agricultural intensification," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 403-428, August.
    9. Kelley, Allen C, 1988. "Economic Consequences of Population Change in the Third World," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 26(4), pages 1685-1728, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. James Roumasset, 2010. "Wither the Economics of Agricultural Development?," Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development, Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), vol. 7(1), pages 1-22, June.
    2. Roumasset, James, 2008. "A new institutional approach to pro-poor agricultural development: Lessons from Asia," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(5-6), pages 378-388.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sasmal, Joydeb & Weikard, Hans-Peter, 2013. "Soil Degradation, Policy Intervention and Sustainable Agricultural Growth," Quarterly Journal of International Agriculture, Humboldt-Universitaat zu Berlin, vol. 52(4), pages 1-20, November.
    2. Pascual, Unai & Barbier, Edward B., 2003. "Modelling Land Degradation In Low-Input Agriculture: The 'Population Pressure Hypothesis' Revised," 2003 Annual Meeting, August 16-22, 2003, Durban, South Africa 25827, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    3. Gardner Brown, 2000. "Renewable Natural Resource Management and Use Without Markets," Working Papers 0025, University of Washington, Department of Economics.
    4. Majah-Leah Ravago & James Roumasset, 2009. "Economic Policy for Sustainable Growth and Development vs. Greedy Growth and Preservationism," Working Papers 200909, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics.
    5. Raouf Boucekkine & Giorgio Fabbri, 2013. "Assessing Parfit’s Repugnant Conclusion within a canonical endogenous growth set-up," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(2), pages 751-767, April.
    6. Headey, Derek D. & Jayne, T.S., 2014. "Adaptation to land constraints: Is Africa different?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 18-33.
    7. Pascual, Unai & Martinez-Espineira, Roberto, 2006. "Poverty and environmental degradation under trade liberalization: searching for second-best policy options," Economia Agraria y Recursos Naturales, Spanish Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 6(12), pages 1-24.
    8. Yoshito Takasaki, 2011. "Economic models of shifting cultivation: a review," Tsukuba Economics Working Papers 2011-006, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Tsukuba.
    9. Yoshito Takasaki & Oliver T. Coomes & Christian Abizaid & Stéphanie Brisson, 2014. "An Efficient Nonmarket Institution under Imperfect Markets: Labor Sharing for Tropical Forest Clearing," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 96(3), pages 711-732.
    10. Albers, H. J. & Goldbach, M. J., 2000. "Irreversible ecosystem change, species competition, and shifting cultivation," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 261-280, July.
    11. Schneider, Laura & Geoghegan, Jacqueline, 2006. "Land Abandonment in an Agricultural Frontier After a Plant Invasion: The Case of Bracken Fern in Southern Yucatán, Mexico," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 35(1), pages 167-177, April.
    12. U Pascual & R Martinez-Espineira, 2003. "Integrated Policy Options for Land Conservation and Rural Poverty Alleviation: A System-Dynamics Approach," Economics Discussion Paper Series 0323, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    13. Marsiglio, Simone, 2011. "On the relationship between population change and sustainable development," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(4), pages 353-364, December.
    14. Thomas, Timothy S., 1999. "Transformation Of Fallow Systems Under Population Pressure," 1999 Annual meeting, August 8-11, Nashville, TN 21603, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    15. Bond, Craig A. & Farzin, Y. Hossein, 2004. "A Portfolio Of Nutrients: Soil And Sustainability," 2004 Annual meeting, August 1-4, Denver, CO 20035, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    16. Simpson, R. David & Laxminarayan, Ramanan, 2000. "Biological Limits on Agricultural Intensification: An Example from Resistance Management," RFF Working Paper Series dp-00-43, Resources for the Future.
    17. Gardner M. Brown, 2000. "Renewable Natural Resource Management and Use without Markets," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 38(4), pages 875-914, December.
    18. Laxminarayan, Ramanan & Simpson, R. David, 2000. "Biological Limits on Agricultural Intensification: An Example from Resistance Management," Discussion Papers 10914, Resources for the Future.
    19. Klemick, Heather, 2008. "Do Liquidity Constraints Help Preserve Tropical Forests? Evidence from the Eastern Amazon," 2008 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2008, Orlando, Florida 6473, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    20. Das Gupta, Monica & Bongaarts, John & Cleland, John, 2011. "Population, poverty, and sustainable development : a review of the evidence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5719, The World Bank.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    population; agricultural development; Boserup; non-convexities; specialization; institutional change;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J10 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - General
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O43 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Institutions and Growth
    • P23 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies - - - Factor and Product Markets; Industry Studies; Population
    • Q01 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General - - - Sustainable Development

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hai:wpaper:200702. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Web Technician (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deuhius.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.