IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/21988.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Economic Backwardness and Catching Up: Brazilian Agriculture, 1964–2014

Author

Listed:
  • Lee Alston
  • Bernardo Mueller

Abstract

Alexander Gerschenkron understood the development of backward countries as a contextual process that varied from country to country depending on which perquisites were present or absent. In the past twenty years, Brazilian agriculture evolved from “backward” to an agricultural powerhouse. Its production and total factor productivity more than doubled. Brazil is in the worlds’ top five producers of coffee, soybeans, oranges, beef and corn. Yet, some segments of agriculture lag far behind. We draw on the insights of Gerschenkron and Albert Hirschman, inter alia to conceptualize the development process. As an illustrative aid we apply fitness landscapes to the process of development. Fitness landscapes are good representations of a contextual view of development. We portray the process as an evolutionary search for good designs across a large, uncertain and not pre-statable set of possibilities. In such circumstances a controlled strategy of following predetermined stages is not effective. Rather we need an approach relying on creativity and imagination to find solutions to specific problems faced by each country.

Suggested Citation

  • Lee Alston & Bernardo Mueller, 2016. "Economic Backwardness and Catching Up: Brazilian Agriculture, 1964–2014," NBER Working Papers 21988, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21988
    Note: DAE DEV EEE LE POL
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w21988.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fenoaltea,Stefano, 2014. "The Reinterpretation of Italian Economic History," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107658080, October.
    2. Charles Mueller, 2014. "The Economics of the Brazilian Model of Agricultural Development author-name: Bernardo Mueller," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series iriba_wp01, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    3. Jeremy Adelman, 2013. "Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9935.
    4. Lee J. Alston & Marcus André Melo & Bernardo Mueller & Carlos Pereira, 2016. "Brazil in Transition: Beliefs, Leadership, and Institutional Change," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10745.
    5. McCloskey, Deirdre Nansen, 2006. "The Bourgeois Virtues," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226556635, January.
    6. Alston, Lee J. & Ferrie, Joseph P., 2005. "Time on the Ladder: Career Mobility in Agriculture, 1890–1938," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 65(4), pages 1058-1081, 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. Petrescu-Mag, Ruxandra Mălina & Petrescu, Dacinia Crina & Muntean, Octavian Liviu, 2018. "Citizen response to a video experiment on values, interests and beliefs related to land. A “Stop and start over!” time for saving Romanian rural heritage," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 468-479.
    2. Mueller, Bernardo & Mueller, Charles, 2016. "The political economy of the Brazilian model of agricultural development: Institutions versus sectoral policy," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 12-20.

    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. Lee J. Alston & Marcus André Melo & Bernardo Mueller & Carlos Pereira, 2016. "A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Critical Transitions," NBER Working Papers 22144, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Alston Lee J. & Mueller Bernardo, 2018. "Priests, Conflicts and Property Rights: the Impacts on Tenancy and Land Use in Brazil," Man and the Economy, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-26, June.
    3. Vania Licio, 2023. "The Italian coal shortage: the price of import and distribution, 1861–1911," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 17(3), pages 501-532, September.
    4. Niclas Berggren & Therese Nilsson, 2013. "Does Economic Freedom Foster Tolerance?," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(2), pages 177-207, May.
    5. Harry Hummels & Patrick Nullens, 2022. "‘Other-wise’ Organizing. A Levinasian Approach to Agape in Work and Business Organisations," Humanistic Management Journal, Springer, vol. 7(2), pages 211-232, October.
    6. Salisbury, Laura, 2014. "Selective migration, wages, and occupational mobility in nineteenth century America," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 40-63.
    7. Love, Peter E.D. & Ika, Lavagnon A. & Ahiaga-Dagbui, Dominic D., 2019. "On de-bunking ‘fake news’ in a post truth era: Why does the Planning Fallacy explanation for cost overruns fall short?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 397-408.
    8. Brent Butgereit & Art Carden, 2011. "Capitalism, Socialism And Calculation," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(3), pages 41-45, October.
    9. William Kingston, 2014. "Schumpeter and the end of Western Capitalism," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 449-477, July.
    10. Aki Tomizawa & Li Zhao & Geneviève Bassellier & David Ahlstrom, 2020. "Economic growth, innovation, institutions, and the Great Enrichment," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 37(1), pages 7-31, March.
    11. Carlo Ciccarelli & Tommaso Proietti, 2013. "Patterns of industrial specialisation in post-Unification Italy," Scandinavian Economic History Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 61(3), pages 259-286, November.
    12. Michelle Albert Vachris & Justin P. Isaacs, 2017. "The Role of Cultural Values in the Formation and Survival of Pro-Growth Institutions," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 32(Spring 20), pages 89-113.
    13. Desierto, Desiree & Koyama, Mark, 2024. "The Political Economy of Status Competition: Sumptuary Laws in Preindustrial Europe," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 84(2), pages 479-516, June.
    14. Vlad Tarko & Kyle O’Donnell, 2019. "Escape from Europe: a calculus of consent model of the origins of liberal institutions in the North American colonies," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 30(1), pages 70-95, March.
    15. DeMartino, George & Grabel, Ilene & Scoones, Ian, 2024. "Economics for an uncertain world," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    16. Jack High, 2013. "Deirdre McCloskey, Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can’t Explain the Modern World," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 26(3), pages 347-354, September.
    17. Rick Wicks, 2012. "Assumption Without Representation: The Unacknowledged Abstraction from Communities and Social Goods," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 57(1), pages 78-95, May.
    18. James Alm, 2014. "Does an uncertain tax system encourage üaggressive tax planningý?," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 30-38.
    19. Deirdre Nansen McCloskey, 2019. "Lachmann practiced humanomics, beyond the dogma of behaviorism," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 32(1), pages 47-61, March.
    20. Enrico Spolaore, 2020. "Commanding Nature by Obeying Her: A Review Essay on Joel Mokyr's A Culture of Growth," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(3), pages 777-792, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N56 - Economic History - - Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment and Extractive Industries - - - Latin America; Caribbean
    • Q15 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Land Ownership and Tenure; Land Reform; Land Use; Irrigation; Agriculture and Environment

    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:nbr:nberwo:21988. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.