Leontief 2012- Peter Timmer скачать в хорошем качестве

Leontief 2012- Peter Timmer

In his Leontief lecture, Peter Timmer spoke from his "deep conviction that raising agricultural productivity was the essential first step" in economic development. Provocatively, he offered six key examples based on his work that "all end up with results that are contrary to those produced by the standard neoclassical model." First on his list was: "economic history matters," and he drew on three centuries of economic development and seven countries -- England, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia -- to illustrate his point that in each case, in very different ways, agriculture served as an engine for later economic growth and structural transformation. His other examples were equally persuasive. "Food price stability is a good thing, not a bad thing," he noted, stressing that apparent "gains to trade from highly unstable food prices ... are illusory." He added his third point, that "day-to-day prices in world commodity markets are a bad guide to long-run decisions." Markets often send the wrong signals, leaving research, investment, and infrastructure underfunded. His fourth example, that "economic structure matters to the rate and distribution of economic growth," stressed the presence of imperfect markets in developing countries and the importance of recognizing the implications of having a large agricultural economy dominated by small-scale farmers. Dr. Timmer's fifth example evoked a theme Michael Lipton would touch on in detail: "Pro-poor growth is feasible and comes with low opportunity costs in the long run." Noting that "markets fail in important social tasks," he called for careful regulation and appropriate social programs to address market failures and to ensure that all benefit from economic growth. He closed with a final example, a call to broaden the frontiers of economic thought to recognize that "political economy is a behavioral field, not a field of positive economics."