This Friedman Seminar features Chris Barrett of Cornell University, presenting "The Structural Transformation of Rural Africa."
Abstract
Africa is the world’s most agrarian and poorest continent. So agriculture is central to economic growth and poverty reduction in Africa. Africa is now growing faster than Asia, with many of the world’s fastest growing economies. Yet it is also now home to a majority of the world’s ultra-poor (those living on ≤$0.95/day per capita) and the only world region where the absolute number of the ultra-poor grew since the 1980s. So how can Africa accelerate the structural transformation that is occurring in some but not all of the sub-continent? This talk will integrate recent findings on inter- and intra-sectoral labor productivity gaps, heterogeneous uptake of modern inputs among households and regions, poverty traps, the inverse size-productivity relationship in agriculture, and some of the challenges of inclusive, agriculture-driven growth and poverty reduction in Africa.
Bio
Christopher B. (Chris) Barrett is the Deputy Dean and Dean of Academic Affairs of the College of Business, the Stephen B. and Janice G. Ashley Professor of Applied Economics and Management, and an International Professor of Agriculture, all at the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, as well as a Professor in the Department of Economics and a Fellow of the David R. Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, all at Cornell University. He currently edits the Palgrave Macmillan book series Agricultural Economics and Food Policy and is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, and the African Association of Agricultural Economists. This semester he is a Visiting Professor of Environmental Science and Public Policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.