Effets indirects et distributifs de la participation aux marchés agricoles dans les pays en développement

The analysis of the effects of agricultural marketing on household (participants) income and/or consumption suggests a consensus on a positive causal relationship. However, it would still be incomplete if it is restricted to the participants alone, because in an economic system, the participants interact with other institutions, thereby giving rise to indirect effects. Studies that focus on assessing indirect effects of marketing using a macroeconomic framework are scarce as they require the inclusion extensive margins. The existing studies suffer from unrealistic assumptions (absence of government, savings, absence of interaction with urban households), disregard heterogeneities, emphasize price policies, and finally rarely include distributional analyses. This thesis presents an approach that extends the literature to address the limitations outlined above. The objective is therefore to explore the indirect macroeconomic, sectoral, and distributional effects of policies targeting farm households in Malawi. To this end, it considers policies on access to agricultural technologies such as access to inorganic fertilizers and/or mechanization. The contribution of this thesis is twofold. First, it contributes to the literature on the analysis of the indirect effects of market-based agriculture, using a sequential approach that includes, both intensive and extensive margins. This approach also emphasizes heterogeneities among households based on their status in labor market. Second, by using a sequential approach that focuses on the microeconomic behaviors of agricultural households in terms of market participation, it extends the literature on the standard macro-micro synthesis, which has, focused heavily on modeling individual labor supply. To build the sequential approach, this thesis employs three modules that are first developed in the different chapters; the modules are then linked in the last chapter. In Chapter 1, we develop a structural model of a farm household that describes decisions of participation in both labor and product markets; the objective here is to identify factors influencing market participation. Solving this model showed nine participation regimes. Comparing the outcomes from the theoretical model with the data, our results indicate that the most prevalent regimes are those in which households are either absent from markets or absent from the product market and have excess labor supply. We estimate the reduced form of the model using an extension of the Heckman approach while including a control function to mitigate the endogeneity problem associated with the adoption of agricultural technologies. Results show that the use of inorganic fertilizers reduces the probability of being excluded from markets while increasing the intensity of participation. This result suggests that participation in agricultural markets is primarily determined by productivity gains in a context where subsistence agriculture is predominant. In Chapter 2, we construct a computable general equilibrium model that accounts for the trade-off that the representative household makes between farming and non-agricultural work. This trade-off is based on comparing transaction costs and wages across sectors. The objective is to explore the sectoral and macroeconomic effects of public investments that increase the productivity of food crops while considering the choice of sector of activity by the household. The introduction of this trade-off into the model allows us to consider, in a non-perfect way, the farm household model developed in Chapter 1. Our results indicate that the responsiveness of the whole economy to the productivity shock depends, inter alia, on the sensitivity of agricultural productivity to public investment and on the degree of labor mobility between agriculture and other industries, which is rarely highlighted in the literature. When labor mobility is improved, the effects of productivity gains are mitigated by an outflow of agricultural labor to the non-agricultural sector, thus increasing the number of unemployed people already in the sector. In Chapter 3, we develop a poverty module that singles out agricultural households from other households. The objective is first to highlight a "Bottom-Up/Top-Down" method that defines the links between the different models developed in chapter 1 and 2. Second, we examine indirect effects of policies aimed at increasing the productivity of farm households. Results show that when the access to fertilizers targets farm households with surplus labor and absent from the grain market, then we observe a greater market orientation. Indeed, the first reaction of these households is to use exclusively their initial surplus labor on the farm to generate marketable surplus production. At the macro level, the resulting reallocation of labor to agriculture creates positive effects on the targeted households, but also positive indirect effects on non-farm households, firms, and the government, through higher non-farm wages, higher returns to capital, lower prices, and a depreciation of the real exchange rate. The result is pro-poor growth with greater effects in rural than in urban areas. In addition, when the policy of access to inorganic fertilizer is supplemented by mechanization, participation in markets is increased. The resulting intensification of on-farm labor leads to a sustained increase in off-farm wages. The induced growth is greater while its effect on reducing poverty and inequality is relatively small. This is because the induced increase in non-agricultural wages is more favorable for non-agricultural (urban) households that are relatively less exposed to poverty than for agricultural (rural) households. Finally, when the fertilizer access policy targets households excluded from both grain and labor markets, we also observe greater market orientation. On the other hand, this results in a trade-off in the allocation of labor to non-farm activities, leading to lower production costs in these sectors and increased non-farm employment. The resulting growth is weak; its effect on poverty and inequality reduction is relatively small. Finally, this thesis shows a methodology that is relatively more suitable than the standard approach for analyzing the macroeconomic and distributional effects of targeted agricultural policies. The results support the claim that productivity-enhancing policies are essential to improve the effects of marketing policies such as price and transaction cost reduction policies. However, it also points to potential negative effects resulting from the reallocation of resources to the agricultural sector, such as increasing the cost of production in non-agricultural sectors.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph. D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctorat

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Économique

Grantor dc:publisher

Université de Sherbrooke

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Camara, Alhassane

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Savard, Luc
• Fortin, Mario

• Participation aux marchés agricoles
• Modèle d'équilibre général calculable
• Microsimulation
• Effets indirects

Language dc:language.iso

fr

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11143/20050

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:usherbrooke.scholaris.ca:11143/20050