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Reversal of Fortune: Immiserizing Technical Change in Agriculture
Author(s) -
Alston Julian M.,
Martin Will J.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
american journal of agricultural economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.949
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1467-8276
pISSN - 0002-9092
DOI - 10.2307/1243535
Subject(s) - economics , technical change , commodity , agriculture , welfare , agricultural economics , public economics , macroeconomics , market economy , productivity , ecology , biology
Abstract Several recent studies have reported the possibility of immiserizing technical change in agriculture. In these studies, the interaction of government commodity policy and technical change has been shown potentially to lead to a loss of national welfare, a negative rate of return to research. The purpose of this paper is to tie these recent results to the earlier results of Bhagwati and Johnson on immiserizing growth (technical change), and to offer a more general condition for describing the impacts of distortions on the benefits from technical change.