Supply response reconsidered: Cocoa in Western Nigeria, 1909–44

This essay uses time‐series data on cocoa plantings in Western Nigeria to re‐examine some popular conclusions about the price responsiveness of farmers in underdeveloped economies. Annual variations in the rate of planting were found to be more closely related to farmers’ income from cocoa sales than to current price. Qualitative evidence suggests that longer‐term trends in cocoa plantings were also influenced by changing opportunity costs and by the institutional structure of rural factor markets. These results cast some doubt on commonly accepted capital stock adjustment models of investment in tree crops, which assume that farmers rely heavily on forecasting future price trends when deciding how much to plant. Given the uncertainty of future crop prices, it seems more likely that farmers plant more trees when they can afford to do so, so long as opportunity costs are not prohibitive.     

An application of the stone model to the Turkish financial accounts

The study presented in this paper consists of the application of two models of financial accounting to Turkish data. Detailed financial accounts are available for 1950–63 [Yaser, 1967], accounts for 1964–67 are incomplete [Aysan, 1967 and State Institute of Statistics, 1968], and none exist for 1968–70. Even if detailed accounts could be prepared somewhat more rapidly they would still not be up to date; a considerable lag in preparation of the basic data, e.g. company balance sheets, etc., exists in Turkey, as in most underdeveloped countries. For this reason, methods of estimating financial accounts with the use of models requiring limited and speedily available current data have been explored.

The aims of the analysis are estimation and prediction. Explanation of the changes in the financial variables has not been attempted here. The bivariate least‐squares regressions run to estimate linear time trends in all the financial proportions used in the models are not explanatory. Durbin‐Watson tests suggest that other factors were significant over the period.¹ This lends support to the conclusion that even for a financial system such as Turkey's which might on a priori grounds be thought particularly well suited to analysis by the Stone model, the non‐substitutability hypothesis embodied in it must be rejected.

The reasons for believing that the Turkish financial structure might lend itself well to analysis by the Stone model are outlined below. They appear so convincing that the negative results of the model's application are surprising. Indeed, they raise a number of interesting questions about financial structures of underdeveloped countries which are beyond the scope of this paper.     

Technical change and dualism within agriculture in India

The dichotomy between subsistence and market‐oriented farmers in many developing countries is a well‐recognized fact. There have been empirical studies in India of the differences between subsistence and market‐oriented or ‘commercial’ farmers; and interest is now developing in the impact of the new agricultural policy on dualism within agriculture. While the theoretical literature deals extensively with dualism between a traditional agricultural sector and an advanced industrial sector, dualism within the agricultural sector itself is less discussed.¹

However, this dualism has become of increasing practical importance in India with the introduction of the ‘New Strategy for Agricultural Development’ in 1966–67.² This policy concentrates on raising output per acre very sharply, especially for the food crops, by the use of new high‐yielding varieties of seeds and complementary inputs. In the beginning, at least, these measures are to be confined to a small part of the total acreage under food grains. Critics have also alleged that they have been confined to the larger farmers, thus accentuating the existing inequality of agricultural incomes, and that this inequality must have several undesirable social, economic and political consequences. But these consequences have not been elaborated, partly for lack of data, but partly also because the theoretical implications of technical change for a dualist development of agriculture have not been adequately discussed. The first object of this paper is to examine the changes in income distribution within agriculture when technical progress is confined to the commercial sector. Thereafter we show that if dualism cannot be directly attacked by such measures as land reform, the second‐best policy from the point of view of maximizing output may in fact be to encourage the use of ‘new’ inputs, such as fertilizers, in the commercial sector.     

Some management objectives of the peasant farmer: An analysis of risk aversion in the choice of cropping pattern,Surat district,India

The basis of peasant farmers’ decision‐making is a critical factor in the formation of agricultural policy in developing countries. If farmers operate efficiently, implying that profits are maximised, then incomes can only be increased by introducing improved methods of production; if farmers do not act efficiently, it may be desirable to reallocate resources within traditional agriculture. Similarly, predictions of farmers’ responses to price changes and thus the impact on aggregate production and employment¹ are based on assumptions regarding farmers’ management objectives.

The primary aim of this paper is to examine empirically the cropping patterns chosen by a group of peasant farmers in Surat District, India, using a simple model of risk aversion. The data show that the observed behaviour corresponds very closely to the hypothesis that farmers allocate land to different crops by striking some balance between the competing criteria of (a) increasing income and (b) decreasing risk measured by income variability. The actual definition of risk is, in this case, the mean absolute deviation of income around its mean level. Secondly, the contrasting importance of risk and credit between irrigated and unirrigated farms is illustrated, and finally, some policy implications are discussed briefly.     

Exchange rate variations and export competitiveness in less developed countries under generalized floating

This paper identifies two basic sources of effective exhange rate (EER) changes under the present system of generalized currency floating and formulates some EER‐based measures of relative export competitiveness in developing countries. These measures are presented and analyzed in terms of their monthly movements and trends over the period from March 1973 to December 1979 for twenty‐three developing countries. Export profitability vis‐à‐vis import‐competing production is shown to have been affected by major currency realignments only to a moderate extent. Normal currency depreciation, both small and large, is found not to lead necessarily to a permanent improvement in export competitiveness. The relationship between the type of exchange rate management and ability of the national authorities to adopt monetary and fiscal policies supportive of real exchange rate adjustment is also empirically examined.     

Political development and the intra‐regional balance of power

Planting and replanting of perennial crops confronts small farmers with a long‐term investment decision. In this study, we analyse the behaviour of rubber smallholders in Sri Lanka when faced with a replacement decision. An intertemporal profit maximizing model (maximizing discounted stream of expected future net revenues) predicts behaviour of larger, hired labour using farmers quite well. The model can also be extended successfully to smaller, family farms, when a lower than market wage rate is imputed to family labour to better reflect opportunity cost of labour, and risk considerations are incorporated in relatively simple fashion. The difference between a cash investment and a labour investment is crucial for the poorer family farmers and an appropriate cash subsidy can play a vital role in inducing them to undertake long term investments.     

An empirical study of the patterns and sources of technical inefficiency in traditional and HYV rice cultivation in Bangladesh

Production frontiers are estimated from survey data from a village in Bangladesh to examine the technical efficiency of farmers in the cultivation of traditional and high‐yielding‐variety (HYV) rice. In spite of much higher yields, HYV cultivation displays lower technical efficiency and much greater variability in efficiency. Also, efficiency is not independent of household endowments in that small farmers, and/or those with the least education and growing experience, are least efficient. Policies that promoted education and provided smaller farmers with greater access to public services would promote efficiency and equity, and help reduce HYV yield variability.     

The abstraction from politics: A critique of economic theory and design with reference to West Africa∗

In this paper an attempt has been made to analyze some of the major features of the interest‐rates in the Indian rural money market. Such a market is distinguished by its duality, with the unorganised sector largely dominating the supply of funds even today. Rural interest‐rates are largely explained by risk and uncertainty rather than by the monopoly power of the moneylenders, though monopoly profit may have existed in some cases. A theoretical model is then constructed and statistical tests show positive correlation between farmers’ income and repayments and negative correlation between the interest‐rate, on the one hand, and income, repayments and monetization on the other. Thus, a rise in farm incomes may reduce the risk premium and, therefore, rural interest‐rates. Further econometric study revealed that the bank rate is more likely to be the leader than the follower of the bazaar rate.     

The growth of Indian nitrogen fertilizer manufacture: Some lessons for industrial planning

Large‐scale manufacture of nitrogen fertilizers in India originated during the Second World War as a result of the interruption of the import of rice from Burma. The growth of production has been at the prodigious rate of 22 per cent per annum in the 17‐year period 1949/50–1965/6. Demand has never acted as a constraint; this suggests that agro‐industry can play an important part in an industrializing strategy for development. In spite of this success two negative features have characterized the economic history of fertilizer production: gestation lags and under‐utilized capacity. Had the establishments worked at design capacity and had the average gestation lag not exceeded three years, less than 60 per cent of the 2.1 million tons of nutrient imported into India during these 17 years would have been required. This highlights the need to include in planning models of output expansion both of these variables, getstation lag and low capacity utilization. Some of their causes have been exogenous to the industry. But a number are internal and recurrent. Unjustified technical risks, plant dis‐integration, faulty process selection and inadequate project appraisal in investment decision‐making. Attempts to reduce the balance of payments deficit have had a negative feedback on the foreign exchange flow by reducing the industry's average annual output. Such negative effects should be included in formulating import control, import substitution and export promotion policies. Finally the ubiquity of excess capacity and the invariance of labour force size with the degree of capacity utilization in this sector is shown to lead to large over‐estimates of the future required‐labour force when certain forecasting techniques are used, even in the absence of trends to increasing labour productivity.     

A simple model of primary commodity price determination: 1900–80

This article specifies and estimates a model of the determination of the real price of primary commodities over the period 1900 to 1980. The empirical evidence reported in the article suggests that the long‐run behaviour of real commodity prices is significantly influenced by both demand and supply side forces, as represented by the level of world production and a distributed lag of previous real prices respectively.     

Factor Proportions,Openness and Factor Prices in Kenya 1965–2000

This study analyses how changes in factor abundance and openness have affected relative factor prices in Kenya since 1965, using cointegration analysis and error correction models of relative factor prices. We find that factor proportions determined relative factor prices in the long run, while openness, measured by three different proxies, possibly had a short run effect on relative factor returns. The only deviation from this pattern occurred during the latter half of the 1990s when there was rapid wage growth, mainly due to labour market deregulation.     

African Green Revolution,food sovereignty and constrained livelihood choice in Mozambique

This article examines the complicated food security agendas of the African Green Revolution and the food sovereignty models in Mozambique. Drawing on fieldwork conducted by the author in Mozambique in 2014 and 2015, the paper analyses how smallholder farmers engage with these two agrarian models. Whereas the literature frequently presents the African Green Revolution and the food sovereignty in oppositional frames, this paper finds that farmers in Mozambique utilize some of the tools that these models offer in complementary rather than competing ways. One such area is the use of commercial hybrid seeds and herbicides by some farmers associated with food sovereignty, an approach that runs counter to food sovereignty’s principles of agroecology. In Mozambique, farmers’ “lived experience” of food sovereignty is more a strategic response to their limited livelihood options, using whatever tools are available to them, rather than a resistance to power.     

Output effects of devaluation: Evidence from Asia

We study the effect of devaluation on output in six developing countries of Asia. In an empirical model that includes monetary, fiscal, and external variables, we examine the impact of devaluation as the effect of real exchange depreciation and alternatively as the effect of nominal devaluation and changes in the foreign‐to‐domestic price ratio. We find that with few exceptions a devaluation fails to make any effect on output over any length of time — short run, intermediate run or long run. Whatever effect on output we are able to uncover comes from the relative price level (the ratio of foreign to domestic prices) but not from nominal devaluation.     

An econometric analysis of trends in fertility rates

Some regression models are used to test the hypothesis that changes in fertility rates have been caused by changes in socioeconomic conditions. The model is applied to four groups of countries and the conclusion is that no simple relationship exists between fertility changes and environmental changes. This conclusion is at variance with results derived from cross‐section studies and suggests not that there is no relationship between socioeconomic and fertility changes, but only that the relationship may be more complex than that considered in previous models.     

EXIT,VOICE, AND DISAPPOINTMENT: MOUNTAIN DECLINE AND EU COMPENSATORY RURAL POLICY IN SPAIN

The article analyses the Spanish experience of EU compensatory rural policy in order to contribute to broader debates on the effectiveness of this kind of policy and the role of agriculture in the definition of European rural policies. In the case of Spain, compensatory allowances to mainly mountain farmers had little effect on economic trajectories or social cohesion because of the small sums involved, the exclusion of those with very small farms, and the decreasing role of agriculture in the rural economy. Other, more structural, instruments of rural policy focused on small‐scale promotion of business growth but were ill‐equipped to challenge some of the territorially defined items of living standard gaps. A historically grounded analysis suggests that the main changes in the social trajectory of Spain's mountain areas in the last decades have little to do with compensatory policy and are related to ordinary economic dynamics.     

Trade liberalisation,government expenditure and economic growth in Egypt

This article investigates the combined effects of growth in government expenditure, exports, investment and labour supply on economic growth in Egypt between 1955 and 1996. Using cointegration and error correction models, the article finds a long‐run relationship between the variables, but less evidence of one in the short run. To account for the important policy reforms in 1974 and 1991, dummy variables are added which show the reforms have significantly affected the relationship between government expenditure and growth in a positive direction, but have had a negative effect on exports and growth. This conclusion is further supported by the time‐varying coefficient analysis.     

Money,exports, government spending,and income in Peru, 1951–66

Most studies of open developing economies, such as Peru, have found the foreign sector's impact on the domestic economy is very great. This is usually true whether the vehicle for changes in income is monetary or real.¹ This study, following the basic models developed by Polak, Prais and Schotta, will attempt to explain short run changes in income in Peru using two different approaches: a monetary approach and an income approach.     

Employee Readiness for Change in Public Higher Education Institutions: Examining the Joint Effect of Leadership Behavior and Emotional Intelligence

This study aimed to examine the effects of leadership behavior and emotional intelligence (EI) on readiness for change and to investigate the moderating effects of organizational commitment on the relationship among leadership behavior, EI, and readiness to change. Data was collected using surveys and Partial least squares structural equations modeling (PLS SEM) was employed. The findings of the study indicated that leadership behavior and EI have significant effects on employees’ readiness for change. More importantly, it confirmed the moderating effect of organizational commitment. This study provides an empirical explanation of the joint effect of some crucial change management determinants.     

Efficiency differentials in peasant agriculture and their implications for development policies

This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical work on allocative efficiency in traditional agriculture and presents a new study of technical efficiency among Tanzanian cotton farmers. The theoretical arguments are shown to apply primarily in a competitive context that differs significantly from that in which peasant farms operate. Re‐analysis of earlier empirical studies shows that, on average, the marginal value products of inputs differ by more than 40 per cent from the marginal factor costs to which they should be equated under allocative efficiency. Our own study among Tanzanian cotton farmers in Geita District reveals that output could be increased by 51 per cent if all farmers achieved those levels of technical efficiency that were in fact achieved by the best farmers in the sample using the same inputs and technologies that the less efficient used. These results indicate that the efficiency hypothesis may not be applicable to much of peasant agriculture and that development policies might fruitfully place more emphasis on raising large numbers of farmers closer to the relatively high efficiency levels achieved by some of their neighbors.     

Poverty and prosperity among migrant settlers in the Amazon rainforest frontier of Ecuador

Household‐level interview data from a probability sample survey conducted in the northeastern Ecuadorian Amazon in 1990 are used to examine the determinants of income and assets among migrant farmers in the agricultural frontier. Multivariate analysis indicates that size of plot owned, proximity to markets, duration of residence, quality of soil, receipt of technical assistance, off‐farm employment and initial wealth positively influence current household income and wealth. More land in cattle pasture is also associated with higher status. Some settlers are prospering relative to others despite variable soil quality, unsustainable land uses, geographic isolation, apparent scarcity of labor, and lack of supportive infrastructure. The article closes with a discussion of implications for policies to assist small farmers, with some consideration of the potential ecological consequences of farmers’ activities.