Theories and Strategies for Agricultural Development

Vocabulary flashcards covering core theories, strategies, input models, and institutional frameworks in agricultural development based on Norton, Alwang & Masters.

Extensive Margin

Generating increased agricultural production by expanding the use of unutilized land and labor resources, such as opening up new lands during colonization or clearing forests.

Intensive Margin

Increasing per-capita agricultural output through more intensive use of existing resources, utilizing methods such as crop rotations, green manuring, forage-livestock systems, drainage and irrigation.

Location Theory of Agricultural Development

A theoretical framework stating that the pattern and intensity of agricultural production vary in relation to proximity to urban-industrial centers and transportation quality due to differences in marketing costs, factor markets, and information flows.

Diffusion Theory

An approach to agricultural development based on transferring existing technologies and economic knowledge from progressive farmers to lagging farmers within or across national borders.

High-Payoff Input Theory

An approach asserting that traditional farmers are rational and efficient with current resources, but require new, highly responsive inputs—such as improved seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigation—to significantly raise agricultural output.

Theory of Induced Innovation

A theory proposing that technical change in agriculture represents a response to changes in relative resource endowments and product demand, driving the development of technologies that substitute abundant, low-cost factors for scarce, high-cost factors.

Biological Technologies

Agricultural innovations, such as high-yielding seeds and fertilizers, that save land and utilize labor more intensively, typically developed in regions where land is scarce relative to labor (e.g., Japan).

Mechanical Technologies

Agricultural machinery and tools that substitute capital for labor, saving labor and increasing output per worker, typically developed in regions where land is abundant relative to labor (e.g., the United States).

Theory of Induced Institutional Change

A theory addressing how changes in relative resource endowments, product prices, and new technologies create incentives for societies to demand updated rules, property rights, and institutional arrangements.

Transactions Costs

The costs associated with adjustment, obtaining information, and negotiating, monitoring, and enforcing contracts, arising from short-run fixed assets, imperfect information, and opportunistic behavior.

Collective Action

Joint efforts organized by a group of people with common interests to influence public sector decisions, policies, infrastructure investments, or research priorities in their favor.

Enlightened Self-Interest

The principle that individuals and public entities recognize that enacting socially beneficial institutional changes, education, transparent legal systems, and fair asset distributions serves their own long-term interests.