Growth Complementarity Between Agriculture and Industry: Evidence from a Panel of Developing Countries

Abstract: Using dynamic panel models with data for 62 developing countries, this paper examines whether growth in agriculture elicits growth in manufacturing. For identification, I use population-weighted, average temperature as an instrument for growth in agriculture. I identify large short-run effects: An increase in growth in agriculture by one percentage point is estimated to raise contemporaneous growth in manufacturing by between 0.47 and 0.56 percentage points. The baseline models also imply sizable long-run effects of permanent increases in growth in agriculture. Extensions of the empirical model suggest that growth in agriculture benefits the manufacturing sector by improving its domestic terms of trade, by increasing the share of investment and saving in GDP, and by increasing the capacity to import industrial inputs. The paper makes two main contributions. First, it joins a growing literature using climate data to identify supply shocks in agriculture, establishing a robust empirical relation between these shocks and growth in manufacturing. Second, it includes a stylized two-sector model to illuminate the macroeconomic channels behind this complementarity. Together, these contributions lend support to the notion that agriculture plays key macroeconomic roles in the industrialization of developing countries by relieving saving, aggregate demand, _scale, and foreign exchange constraints on the industrial sector

Essays on Growth Complementarity Between Agriculture and Industry in Developing Countries

This dissertation examines three aspects of the macroeconomic role of agriculture in the industrialization of developing countries. In the first essay, I utilize instrumental variable techniques to empirically identify the effect of growth in agriculture on growth in manufacturing. Using data for 62 countries and instrumental variable techniques, I find that higher land yields in agriculture raise growth in manufacturing in the short to medium run. Along with extensions of the basic empirical model, this finding suggests that land-saving technical change can stimulate demand for industrial goods, raise fiscal revenues, and provide foreign exchange earnings to finance capital accumulation. In the second essay, I examine the role of biased-technical change in agriculture in the formation of aggregate demand for industry. I use a two-sector growth model to show that, under conditions of low factor substitutability and hidden unemployment, land-saving innovations can raise rural employment, enlarge the domestic market for manufactures, and promote faster industrial accumulation --- in contrast to labor-saving innovations. I also develop saving-constrained and open economy extensions of the baseline model. The essay casts light on a recent strand of empirical studies --- including the first essay of this dissertation --- which have identified a positive impact of higher land yields on industrial growth. Finally, in the third essay I develop a political-economic explanation for the labor-displacing trend that existed across the larger and most dynamic agricultural establishments in Brazil during the 1950-1980 period. Using primary data and the secondary literature, I document this trend and argue that it resulted from the interaction between public policies to promote the use of modern inputs, on the one hand, and size and power inequality across landholdings, on the other hand. As a result, the pattern of technical change in agriculture aggravated the problem of underemployment that beset Brazil\u27s industrialization, preventing a broader distribution of its benefits

Real Wages and Labor-saving Technical Change: Evidence from a Panel of Manufacturing Industries in Mature and Labor-surplus Economies

This paper uses panel cointegration and error correction models to unveil the direction of long-run causality between the real product wage and labor productivity at the industry level. I use two datasets of manufacturing industries: the EU-Klems dataset covering 11 industries in 19 developed economies, and the Unido Industrial Statistics Database covering 22 industries in 30 developed and developing economies. In both datasets, I find evidence of cointegration between the two variables, as well as evidence of two-way, long-run Granger causality. These findings are consistent with theories of directed technical change, which claim that a rise in labor costs sparks the adoption of labor-saving innovations. They are also consistent with distributive theories whereby real wages keep apace of labor productivity growth, giving rise to long-run stability in functional distribution

Churning and Profitability in the U.S. Corporate Sector

This paper establishes that entry and exit regulate the top half of the profitability distribution in the post-1970 U.S. economy. We, first, document stability in the distribution of total profits earned on tangible, intangible, and financial capital. Whereas a narrower measure of returns on tangible capital, instead, suggests rising dispersion, it fails to capture post-1970 growth in intangible and financial assets. Second, we use quantile decompositions to show that churning – specifically, exit for cause – regulates median and top-end profitability. Thus, the process by which competition drives out unprofitable firms acts to stabilize profit rates in the U.S. economy

Rodlet cells changes in Oreochromis niloticus in response to organophosphate pesticide and their relevance as stress biomarker in teleost fishes

Rodlet cells are frequently found in teleost fishes and although their role in organisms is not completely understood. The occurrence of these cells are related to stress and may undergo changes in contaminated environments, thereby allowing their use as biomarkers. This hypothesis is tested in the present study. Thirty specimens of Oreochromis niloticus were divided into three groups, two groups were exposed to organophosphate pesticide methyl parathion at nominal concentrations of 4 mgl-1 and 8 mgl-1 and one group was kept as control. After ten days, the gills were removed for microscopic study and the number and area of the rodlet cells were analyzed and compared with a well-established method of assessing histological damages in fishes. No significant differences were found in the area of the cells, but there were significant differences in the number of rodlet cells among examined concentrations. The present study provides evidence for the use of this new biomarker in teleost fishes and discusses some of the potential confounding factors of this approach

The proximal point method for locally lipschitz functions in multiobjective optimization with application to the compromise problem

This paper studies the constrained multiobjective optimization problem of finding Pareto critical points of vector-valued functions. The proximal point method considered by Bonnel, Iusem, and Svaiter [SIAM J. Optim., 15 (2005), pp. 953–970] is extended to locally Lipschitz functions in the finite dimensional multiobjective setting. To this end, a new (scalarization-free) approach for convergence analysis of the method is proposed where the first-order optimality condition of the scalarized problem is replaced by a necessary condition for weak Pareto points of a multiobjective problem. As a consequence, this has allowed us to consider the method without any assumption of convexity over the constraint sets that determine the vectorial improvement steps. This is very important for applications; for example, to extend to a dynamic setting the famous compromise problem in management sciences and game theory.Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de GoiásConselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e TecnológicoCoordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nivel SuperiorMinisterio de Economía y CompetitividadAgence nationale de la recherch

Proyecto Movie – Una experiencia con el tiempo

En este artículo se busca explicitar algunas distintas relaciones conceptuales en la percepción del tiempo centrada en el trabajo de rehacer una forestación de un lugar, durante ocho años consecutivos. El proyecto MOVIE, más allá de ser una contracción de estos ocho años de recuperación paisajístico, concentrados en ocho minutos de videos, es también, la motivación experimental donde si imparte toda una posibilidad de análisis textual que ilusiona presentar el concepto de tiempo centrado en la capacidad de recepción y entendimiento de cada sujeto. Las consecuencias imaginativas de intercambio entre el hombre y la naturaleza, sometidos a la acción del tiempo, es el objeto de proyecto. La actividad fotográfica se desarrolla en la finca Taruman ubicada en el Estado Espírito Santo (provincia autónoma), Brasil, desde el 2008, la cual participa como soporte cartográfico, temporal y material de este acto de recuperación ambiental. Se señala que la distinción entre las nociones de tiempo que cambian en los entrelazamientos entre los referentes humanos, paisajísticos, geológicos y de la flora tropical, aparecen también, como resultado de este reto hermenéutico sobre la experiencia entre arte y naturaleza

Taxonomy Of Aspidosperma Mart. (apocynaceae, Rauvolfioideae) In The State Of Para, Northern Brazil

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Aspidosperma Mart. is one of the most important genera from Apocynaceae Juss. occurring in Brazil. It is present in many plant formations and has species with both medicinal and economic value. From a taxonomic point of view, many of its species are difficult to identify, especially those occurring in the Amazonian region. In order to complement the information already available with regard to the taxonomy and distribution of the genus, the goal of this work was to provide a taxonomic study of the Aspidosperma species occurring in the state of Para, northern Brazil. This study was based on the analysis of vouchers from the BHCB, HBRA, IAC, IAN, INPA, MG, R, RB and UEC herbaria, as well as scanned images of vouchers from Brazilian and foreign herbaria, and specimens collected in the field. Species identification was confirmed by analysis of protologues and types (or images). We present taxonomic descriptions, illustrations and one identification key for the 20 species of Aspidosperma found in Para, with the Baixo Amazonas Mesoregion presenting the largest number of species (17), and the Metropolitana de Belem Mesoregion presenting the Smallest number of species (3). Aspidosperma eteanum, A. oblongum, A. salgadense (endemic of Para) and A. sandwithianum are accepted as species here. Aspidosperma cuspa is a new record for Para. The fruits of Aspidosperma eteanum and A. salgadense, and the seeds of A. eteanum, have been described and illustrated for the first time.162Coordenacao de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior (CAPES, Office for the Advancement of Higher Education)PNADB [PNADB 922/2010]Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES