TY - JOUR
T1 - The food problem and the evolution of international income levels
AU - Gollin, Douglas
AU - Parente, Stephen L.
AU - Rogerson, Richard
N1 - Funding Information:
We have benefited from the comments of Jeremy Atack, Robert Evenson, Tim Guinnane, B. Ravikumar, Diego Restuccia, and seminar participants at Brown University, CIRPEE-UQAM Montreal, Columbia University, University of Connecticut, SUNY Albany, University of Delaware, University of Pittsburgh, Vassar College, University of Western Ontario, Williams College, the NBER Summer Institute 2002, and at annual meetings of the Allied Social Science Association, the Econometric Society, and the Society for Economic Dynamics. Part of this work was done while Gollin was visiting the Economic Growth Center at Yale. Rogerson acknowledges support from the NSF. An earlier version of this paper circulated under the title, Structural Transformation and Economic Development.
PY - 2007/5
Y1 - 2007/5
N2 - In most poor countries, large fractions of land, labor, and other productive resources are devoted to producing food for subsistence needs. We show that a model incorporating the "food problem" can provide new and useful insights into the evolution of international income levels. In particular, we find that the food problem can explain why some countries started to realize increases in per capita output more than 250 years later in history than others. We also show that the food problem has important implications for growth miracles and the speed at which a country converges to its balanced growth path.
AB - In most poor countries, large fractions of land, labor, and other productive resources are devoted to producing food for subsistence needs. We show that a model incorporating the "food problem" can provide new and useful insights into the evolution of international income levels. In particular, we find that the food problem can explain why some countries started to realize increases in per capita output more than 250 years later in history than others. We also show that the food problem has important implications for growth miracles and the speed at which a country converges to its balanced growth path.
KW - Food problem
KW - International income differences
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jmoneco.2006.04.002
DO - 10.1016/j.jmoneco.2006.04.002
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:34247334654
SN - 0304-3932
VL - 54
SP - 1230
EP - 1255
JO - Carnegie-Rochester Confer. Series on Public Policy
JF - Carnegie-Rochester Confer. Series on Public Policy
IS - 4
ER -