Why Liberalization Alone Has Not Improved Agricultural Productivity in Zambia : The Role of Asset Ownership and Working Capital Constraints
The authors use a large panel data set from Zambia to examine factors that could explain the relatively lackluster performance of the country's agricultural sector after liberalization. Zambia's liberalization significantly opened the eco...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2015
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2000/03/437970/liberalization-alone-not-improved-agricultural-productivity-zambia-role-asset-ownership-working-capital-constraints http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22357 |
| Summary: | The authors use a large panel data set
from Zambia to examine factors that could explain the
relatively lackluster performance of the country's
agricultural sector after liberalization. Zambia's
liberalization significantly opened the economy but failed
to alter the structure of production or help realize
efficiency gains. They reach two main conclusions. First,
not owning productive assets (in Zambia, draft animals and
implements) limits improvements in agricultural productivity
and household welfare. Owning oxen increases income
directly, allows farmers to till their fields efficiently
when rain is delayed, increases the area cultivated, and
improves access to credit and fertilizer markets. Second,
the authors reject the hypothesis that the application of
fertilizer is unprofitable because of high input prices.
Rather, fertilizer use appears to have declined because of
constraints on supplies, which government intervention
exacerbated instead of alleviating. (Extending the use of
fertilizer to the many producers not currently using it
would be profitable, but increasing the amount applied by
the few producers who now have access to it would not be.)
Policies to foster accumulation of the assets needed for
agricultural production (including draft animals and
implements) and to provide complementary public goods
(education, credit, and good agricultural extension
services) could greatly help reduce poverty and improve productivity. |
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