Agricultural Productivity and Structural Transformation. Evidence from Brazil

Paula Bustos (), Bruno Caprettini and Jacopo Ponticelli

No 736, Working Papers from Barcelona School of Economics

Abstract: We study the effects of the adoption of new agricultural technologies on structural transformation. To guide empirical work, we present a simple model where the effect of agricultural productivity on industrial development depends on the factor bias of technical change. We test the predictions of the model by studying the introduction of genetically engineered soybean seeds in Brazil, which had heterogeneous effects on agricultural productivity across areas with different soil and weather characteristics. We find that technical change in soy production was strongly labor saving and lead to industrial growth, as predicted by the model.

Keywords: agricultural productivity; structural transformation; industrial development; labor saving technical change; genetically engineered soy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F16 F43 Q16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-dev, nep-eff and nep-lam
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Agricultural Productivity and Structural Transformation: Evidence from Brazil (2016)
Working Paper: Agricultural productivity and structural transformation. Evidence from Brazil (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bge:wpaper:736

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