This paper develops a two-sector growth model incorporating the essential distinguishing features of agriculture, including the reliance of production on a natural resource base as well as on industrially produced inputs, the low income elasticity of demand for food and the life-sustaining...

HIV prevalence dynamics are introduced into a three sector, neoclassical growth model. The model is calibrated to South African national accounts data and used to examine the potential impact of HIV/AIDS on economic growth. Projections portend if left unchecked, the long run impact of HIV and...

Morocco is engaged in a number of economic reforms to better position the country's integration into world markets. Her agricultural sector is particularly important as its trade, GDP, and employment share are relatively large. We analyze Morocco's agricultural trade growth trends over the past...

The maintained hypotheses embodied in structural general equilibrium models calibrated to data have tended to make economists and policy makers insecure regarding their empirical foundation. Advances in dynamic general equilibrium (DGE) theory and its empirical application have exacerbated this...

The share of resources allocated to food marketed through supermarkets and their marketing channels has grown at an unprecedented rate in lower income countries during the 1990s. The implication is that the evolution of supermarkets cannot be viewed in isolation of the broader economic general...

The role of international trade in the new growth theory is investigated from several perspectives. Following a historical outline and a brief analytical sketch of the R&D based models, the results from fitting three structural models to data are presented. Results show the relative impacts on...

Commodity price volatility in international markets has been used to justify numerous policy interventions, including the need for buffer stocks and counter-cyclical payments. The common measure of volatility, the standard deviation or coefficient of variation, likely overstates the actual...

Earlier analyses of area yield crop insurance schemes used a reduced form linear relationship between individual and area yield. However, without knowledge of the structural framework, the analysis and design of alternative schemes is problematic. This paper resolves this problem. The paper...

As growth in world trade outpaces the growth in world Gross Domestic Product (GDP), economies are becoming ever more linked through world markets (Helpman, 1998). It is evident that U.S. agriculture is also becoming increasingly affected by changes or economic shocks in world markets and that...