Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of conference participants
- 1 Introduction: from macro to maize
- Part One Open economy analysis
- Part Two The small country assumption and trade reform
- Part Three Risk and adjustment
- Part Four Government's role
- 11 Infrastructure, relative prices and agricultural adjustment
- Discussion
- 12 Structural factors and tax revenue in developing countries: a decade of evidence
- Discussion
- 13 International dimensions of the political economy of distortionary price and trade policies
- Discussion
- Index
Discussion
from Part Four - Government's role
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of conference participants
- 1 Introduction: from macro to maize
- Part One Open economy analysis
- Part Two The small country assumption and trade reform
- Part Three Risk and adjustment
- Part Four Government's role
- 11 Infrastructure, relative prices and agricultural adjustment
- Discussion
- 12 Structural factors and tax revenue in developing countries: a decade of evidence
- Discussion
- 13 International dimensions of the political economy of distortionary price and trade policies
- Discussion
- Index
Summary
Riccardo Faini's interesting paper does valuable work in summarising what can be said using aggregate cross-country data about the impact of structural adjustment programmes on developing country agriculture. It turns out that what we can say is more limited than might be hoped, but this in itself is an important lesson, and draws attention to the need for more country- and sector-specific studies. I shall deal with the two parts of his paper in turn, drawing attention first to econometric and then to interpretational issues.
First of all, does the evidence reveal that adjustment programmes have a beneficial effect on agricultural growth? Table 11.2 suggests they do. In interpreting Table 11.2, it is important to note that it is expressed in terms of the impact of independent variables on the levels of the performance indicators (not their first differences as Equation 11.2 would lead us to expect). One implication of this is that the insignificance of the coefficient on the lagged agricultural growth rate means that improvements in GYA between the two periods were on average equal and opposite in sign to deviations of GYA from the sample men in the first period (controlling for other effects). So none of the factors explaining the dispersion of GYA between countries in the first period has any explanatory power left in the second, which is surprising given the ingrained character of the structural rigidities that adjustment programmes have sought to reform.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Open EconomiesStructural Adjustment and Agriculture, pp. 263 - 266Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1992