The Conditions of Agricultural Growth: The Economics of Agrarian Change Under Population PressureThis book sets out to investigate the process of agrarian change from new angles and with new results. It starts on firm ground rather than from abstract economic theory. Upon its initial appearance, it was heralded as "a small masterpiece, which economic historians should read--and not simply quote"--Giovanni Frederico, Economic History Services. The Conditions of Agricultural Growth remains a breakthrough in the theory of agricultural development. In linking ethnography with economy, developmental studies reached new heights. Whereas "development" had been seen previously as the transformation of traditional communities by the introduction (or imposition) of new technologies, Ester Boserup argues that changes and improvements occur from within agricultural communities, and that improvements are governed not simply by external interference, but by those communities themselves Using extensive analyses of the costs and productivity of the main systems of traditional agriculture, Ester Boserup concludes that technical, economic, and social changes are unlikely to take place unless the community concerned is exposed to the pressure of population growth. "This essay will surely be a most formative work in the study of agricultural change. In it Boserup lifts the theory of agricultural development out of the rut of sterile discussion of land use and tenure, and sets it within an illuminating dynamic framework, which reveals the irrelevance of old squabbles by raising neglected but fundamental issues"--Charles Elliott, Economic History Review. Education in Science and Technology called it "a classic in the development literature." Development Policy Review added, "essential reading in the context of the generally gloomy debate on the effects of population growth on poverty and the status of the environment." Ester Boserup was a Danish economist who spent many years researching the problems of economic development and agriculture for the United Nations and acted as economic consultant for other international bodies. She studied in India under Gunnar Myrdal. She died in 1999. Virginia Deane Abernethy is professor of psychiatry and anthropology at Vanderbilt University Medical School. For twelve years, she was editor of the ecology and social science journal, Population and Environment. |
Other editions - View all
The Conditions of Agricultural Growth: The Economics of Agrarian Change ... Ester Boserup Limited preview - 2003 |
The Conditions of Agricultural Growth: The Economics of Agrarian Change ... Ester Boserup Limited preview - 2014 |