The vast majority of the world s poorest households depend on farming for their livelihoods. During the 1960s and 1970s, most developing countries imposed pro-urban and anti-agricultural policies, while many high-income countries restricted agricultural imports and subsidized their farmers. Both sets of policies inhibited economic growth and poverty alleviation in developing countries. Although progress has been made over the past two decades to reduce those policy biases, many trade- and welfare-reducing price distortions remain between agriculture and other sectors and within the agricultural sector of both rich and poor countries. Comprehensive empirical studies of the disarray in world agricultural markets appeared approximately 20 years ago. Since then, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has provided estimates each year of market distortions in high-income countries, but there have been no comparable estimates for the world s developing countries. This volume is the third in a series (other volumes cover Asia, Europe s transition economies, and Latin America and the Caribbean) that not only fills that void for recent years but extends the estimates in a consistent and comparable way back in time and provides analytical narratives for scores of countries that shed light on the evolving nature and extent of policy interventions over the past half-century. 'Distortions to Agricultural Incentives in Africa' provides an overview of the evolution of distortions to agricultural incentives caused by price and trade policies in the Arab Republic of Egypt plus 20 countries that account for about of 90 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa s population, farm households, agricultural output, and overall GDP. Sectoral, trade, and exchange rate policies in the region have changed greatly since the 1950s, and there have been substantial reforms since the 1980s. Nonetheless, numerous price distortions in this region remain, others have been added in recent years, and there has also been some backsliding, such as in Zimbabwe. The new empirical indicators in these country studies provide a strong evidence-based foundation for assessing the successes and failures of the past and for evaluating policy options for the years ahead.

Most of the world's poorest people depend on farming for their livelihood. Earnings from farming in low-income countries are depressed partly due to a pro-urban bias in own-country policies, and partly because richer countries (including some developing countries) favor their farmers with import barriers and subsidies. Both sets of policies reduce national and global economic growth and add to inequality and poverty in developing countries. Acknowledgement of that since the 1980s has given rise to greater pressures for reform, both internal and external. Over the past two decades numerous developing country governments have reduced their sectoral and trade policy distortions, while many high-income countries continue with protectionist policies that harm developing country exports of farm products. Recent research suggests that the agricultural protectionist policies of high-income countries reduce welfare in many developing countries. Most of those studies also suggest that full global liberalization of merchandise trade would raise value added in agriculture in developing country regions, and that much of the benefit from global reform would come not just from reform in high-income countries but also from liberalization among developing countries, including in many cases own-country reform. These findings raise three key questions that are addressed in this paper: To what extent have the reforms of the past two decades succeeded in reducing distortions to agricultural incentives? Do current policy distortions still discriminate against farmers in low-income countries? And what are the prospects for further reform in the next decade or so?

Economic growth in the Sub-Saharan Africa region has been plagued by a series of shocks—wars, political instability, natural disasters, epidemics, terms-of-trade deterioration, and sudden stops in capital inflows—that have had lingering effects on productivity and growth. Within the overall productivity gap of the region are substantial differences across the sectors of economic activity and production units. Boosting Productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa: Policies and Institutions to Promote Efficiency documents the productivity trends in Sub-Saharan Africa in three different dimensions, assessing productivity at the aggregate level, the sectoral level, and the establishment level. It characterizes the evolution of productivity in the region relative to other countries and regions, as well as country groups in Africa, classified by their degree of natural resource abundance and condition of fragility. The volume suggests that the persistence of the productivity gap in Africa vis-à -vis the technological frontier can be attributed to the slow accumulation of physical and human capital relative to the region’s growing population, as well as the poor allocation of these resources. These allocative inefficiencies are the outcome of policies and institutions that introduce distortions in the decision-making process of individuals. Hence, the volume assesses the implications of production decisions across agricultural farms and manufacturing firms. It presents evidence on aggregate productivity from the perspective of production units, using recent household surveys for farmers and firm-level surveys for select countries, as well as frontier estimation techniques. It documents the extent of severe resource misallocation across agricultural and manufacturing production units. These distortions decelerate the growth of the production units, disincentivize their adoption of productivity-enhancing technologies, and reduce the ability of their peers to learn new techniques. Boosting Productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa highlights the adoption of digital technologies to reduce some of these market frictions. Mobile money has increased financial inclusion in several countries, and digital financial technologies have given individuals access to savings instruments and loan products. Enhancing access to credit can help individuals invest in schooling and overcome the costs of formality. The volume discusses further avenues of research that may provide additional insights on the productivity dynamics across countries in the region, and it identifies the different channels of policy transmission to enhance productivity. The empirical work presented can help to guide the design of policy in the region.

The observed decline of agriculture and the general worsening of economic conditions in Sub-Saharan Africa are linked to economic distortions, which limit growth.

The vast majority of the world's poorest households depend on farming for their livelihoods. During the 1960s and 1970s, most developing countries imposed pro-urban and anti-agricultural policies, while many high-income countries restricted agricultural imports and subsidized their farmers. Both sets of policies inhibited economic growth and poverty alleviation in developing countries. Although progress has been made over the past two decades to reduce those policy biases, many trade- and welfare-reducing price distortions remain between agriculture and other sectors and within the agricultural sector of both rich and poor countries. Comprehensive empirical studies of the disarray in world agricultural markets appeared approximately 20 years ago. Since then, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development had provided estimates each year of market distortions in high-income countries, but there have been no comparable estimates for the world's developing countries. This volume is the third in a series (other volumes cover Africa, Europe's transition economices, and Latin America and the Caribbean) that not only fills that void for recent years but extends the estimates in a consistent and comparable way back in time and provides analytical narratives for scores of countries that shed light on the evolving nature and extent of policy interventions over the past half-century. 'Distortions to Agricultural Incentives in Asia' provides an overview of the evolution of distortions to agricultural incentives caused by price and trade policies in the 12 largest economies of East and South Asia. Together these countries constitute more than 95 percent of the region's population, agricultural output, and overall GDP. Sectoral, trade, and exchange rate policies in the region have changed greatly since the 1950s, and there have been substantial reforms since the 1980s, most notably in China and India. Nonetheless, numerous price distortions in this region remain and others have added in recent years. The new empirical indicators in these country studies provide a strong evidence-based foundation for assessing the successes and failures of the past and for evaluating policy options for the years ahead.