Agricultural determinants of industrialization.

Summary This thesis studies the agricultural determinants of industrialization from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. The purpose of the first chapter is to determine the nature of the technical progress that has allowed a spillover of the labor force from agriculture to industry and services. Is it an improvement in the productivity of agricultural land, or an improvement in the productivity of agricultural labour? A simple theoretical model estimated from national data suggests that in developing countries where agricultural production is close to the subsistence level of households, both types of technical progress contribute to the spillover of the agricultural labor force. In contrast, in developed countries, labor productivity is the predominant factor, while a technological change that is similar to land expansion could instead attract more workers to the agricultural sector. The purpose of the second chapter is to determine whether the sectoral distribution of employment at the national level reflects the functioning of an economy that is closed to international trade or, on the contrary, the functioning of an economy that is open to trade and that is price-taking. The results of the estimation of a panel of data for some 15 developed and developing countries are favourable to the thesis of an economy closed to trade, in which the sectors whose relative size is growing are those with the lowest labour productivity growth. This means that an industrialization strategy must involve strong growth in agricultural labor productivity, which will allow both a decline in food prices and a growth in purchasing power towards non-food goods, and a surplus of labor for the secondary and tertiary sectors. The purpose of the third chapter is to quantify the effects of a reform of the agricultural land rental market on the sectoral distribution of the labor force. In many developing countries, these markets are not very active because of numerous legal constraints and weak protection of property rights for landowners. Can an improvement in the functioning of these markets contribute to the spillover of agricultural workers into the nonagricultural sectors, or to the increase of farmers' work in nonagricultural activities? Theoretically, the question is complex because partial equilibrium effects and general equilibrium effects lead to opposite conclusions. In partial equilibrium, when the land rental market increases in activity, this encourages workers to join the agricultural sector. In general equilibrium, agricultural prices fall, and this encourages farm workers to leave the industry. Nevertheless, the simulations show that a reform of the land rental market could contribute to a significant increase in farmers' income and welfare.