Productivity, transport costs and subsistence agriculture

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Gollin, Douglas; Rogerson, Richard
• 署名单位: University of Oxford; Princeton University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2013.10.007
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 38-48
• 关键词: Economic development; structural transformation; transport costs; Subsistence agriculture; Agricultural development; Two-sector model

摘要

A defining feature of many poor economies is the large fraction of workers engaged in subsistence agriculture. We develop a multi-sector multi-region model of a poor economy in which it is costly to transport goods across regions in order to study this outcome. A key finding is that higher transport costs drive up the size of the agricultural workforce and the fraction in subsistence. In a calibrated version of our model we show that the effect of transport productivity is quantitatively important in terms of both allocations and welfare. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.