Research report on the role of the agricultural sector in overall economic growth in Argentina from 1940-1971 - explains the econometric model used for analysing the functoning of a market economy; studies effects of trade liberalization, exchange rate policies and domestic taxation, public investment and Terms of Trade, production functions, consumer expenditure, etc. Bibliography and graphs.

The noted economist Yair Mundlak presents here a theory of the growth of the agricultural sector within the context of a growing economy. He explores the various aspects of the dynamics of agriculture and their relationship to the dynamics of the economy at large, offering a unique blend of theory, methodology, and empirical analysis. The rate of agricultural growth has varied across countries and over time, even though the main innovations in agricultural technology have been made available to all countries. Consequently, the difference in performance is due to the use made of the available technology. Mundlak treats the implementation of technology as an economic decision similar to decisions about resource supply and allocation. The development of agriculture, like that of other sectors, is determined to a large degree by the economic environment, especially public policies. This framework permits the author to evaluate the effects of policies on growth by examining their effects on sectoral incentives. Mundlak shows that neutral macroeconomic policies may have a stronger effect on sectoral growth than sector-specific policies. The book contains problem sets, and will be a reference and text for graduate-level courses.

As a result of the regional debt crisis, most governments of Latin America in the 1980s entered into a process of profound policy change, from an import substitution oriented strategy to a focus upon export-promotion, with an emphasis upon market liberalisation. According to mainstream economic theory, the effect of this shift would be to favour agriculture. This book, with contributors from Latin America and Europe, surveys the results on agriculture of a decade of policy change, and to produce new and unexpected insights.

From the twentieth century until World War II, Argentina was a leading exporter of agricultural goods. In the early 1980s, agriculture accounted for roughly 57 percent of the country's total exports. During the period covered by this study (1961 to 1985), Argentina's trade policy, which was carried out through export taxes on the main agricultural and agroindustrial products and through industrial protection, was designed to discriminate against most exports vis-a-vis imports. This study examines the impact of trade and exchange rate policies on wheat, corn, sorghum, soybeans, sunflower seeds and beef production. One of its prinicipal findings is that direct price intervention substantially reduced producer prices and that industrial protection policies and overvaluation of the real exchange rate taxed agriculture even more than direct interventions. The study also explores the political factors underlying the establishment of policies that had these negative effects. The main conclusion is that external events, such as the Great Depression and World War II led to a fall in export prices and to higher import prices. Policies were established in the post war period to maintain the protection to import-substitutes and the taxation of agriculture. Export taxes were seen as a way of keeping domestic food prices low and of improving fiscal equilibrium by producing larger tax revenues.