CAPITAL ACCUMULATION AND STRUCTURAL TRANSFORMATION

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bustos, Paula; Garber, Gabriel; Ponticelli, Jacopo
• 署名单位: Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; Central Bank of Brazil; Northwestern University
• 刊物名称: QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-5533
• DOI: 10.1093/qje/qjz044
• 发表日期: 2020
• 页码: 1037-1094
• 关键词: factor-price equalization; Agricultural productivity; financial frictions; comparative advantage; GROWTH; credit; TRADE; MODEL; intermediation; LIBERALIZATION

摘要

Several scholars argue that high agricultural productivity can retard industrial development because it draws resources toward the comparative advantage sector, agriculture. However, agricultural productivity growth can increase savings and the supply of capital, generating an expansion of the capital-intensive sector, manufacturing. We highlight this mechanism in a simple model and test its predictions in the context of a large and exogenous increase in agricultural productivity due to the adoption of genetically engineered soy in Brazil. We find that agricultural productivity growth generated an increase in savings, but these were not reinvested locally. Instead, there were capital outflows from rural areas. Capital reallocated toward urban regions, where it was invested in the industrial and service sectors. The degree of financial integration affected the speed of structural transformation. Regions that were more financially integrated with soy-producing areas through bank branch networks experienced faster growth in nonagricultural lending. Within these regions, firms with preexisting relationships with banks receiving funds from the soy area experienced faster growth in borrowing and employment.