Theoretical and empirical review of the economic analysis of agricultural markets: special case of developing countries[Revue théorique et empirique de l’analyse économique des marchés agricoles: cas particuliers des pays en développement]

The aim was to build up a documentation base on the analysis of agricultural markets, mainly for students who are struggling to find the documents they need to better understand and deepen their research. To this end, this work has attempted to provide some theoretical foundations and case studies, often followed by a critical analysis. The main methodology used was a combination of lecture reviews, literature reviews based on the research and field experience of the author and the CAPES reviewers. The paper presents basic theoretical models such as King's model, the SCP model, the value chain approach, the transaction cost approach and the rural household model. Then other more operational models such as the policy analysis matrix, the value chain approach and approaches related to the value chain were also presented. Some models were presented with their corresponding case study. The last part of the work focused on two equally edifying case studies: the study of cattle and beef marketing in West Africa; and the analysis of the relationship between markets and food security in Burkina Faso. The main finding is that the multitude of analytical models presented appear basic or overly qualitative in terms of the level of mathematical tools used. This is what opens up a perspective for this work via the project for a second volume on the temporal and spatial analysis of agricultural markets. This will involve a more mathematical analysis, using in-depth statistics and econometrics, of the evolution of agricultural price dynamics over time and space.