Agricultural Household Models; Extensions, Applications, and Policy

Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press [published for The World Bank], 1986. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Good. xii, 335 pages, [7]. Formulae. Figures. Tables. Notes. References. Index. There is minor wear to the cover. No DJ present. Some highlighting noted. Some marginal notes and marks observed. This is a World Bank Research Publication. Excerpt from Introduction: "In most developing countries, agriculture remains a principal source of income for the majority of the population, an important earner of foreign exchange, and a central concern of government policymakers. One of the great problems for these countries is that efforts to predict the consequences of agricultural policies are often confounded by the complex behavior patterns characteristic of households in semi-commercialized, rural economies. That is to say, most households in agricultural areas produce partly for sale and partly for their own consumption. They also purchase some of their inputs and provide some from their own resources. Any change in the policies governing agricultural activities will therefore affect not only production but also consumption and labor supply. These relations are what analysts attempt to capture in their efforts to model the behavior of agricultural households." Semicommercial farms that produce multiple crops make up a large part of the agricultural sector in developing economies. These farms or agricultural households combine two fundamental units of microeconomic analysis: the household and the firm. Traditional economic theory has dealt with these units separately. But in developing economies in which peasant farms dominate, their interdependence is of crucial importance. Researchers at the Food Research Institute, Stanford University, and at the World Bank have developed models of agricultural households that combine producer and consumer behavior in a theoretically consistent fashion. Recent empirical applications of these models have extended them and expanded the range of policy issues which can be investigated using this general framework.
This reports the results of empirical applications of this model in India, Indonesia, the Republic of Korea, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and China. It provides a comparative analysis of the policy implications of the approach for such matters as the welfare of farm households, the size of marketed surplus, the demand for nonagricultural goods and services, and for hired labor, and the availability of budget revenues and foreign exchange.