Agricultural Development and Demographic Change: A Generalization of the Boserup Model

TLDR: The role of population growth in agricultural development is discussed in this paper, where the authors propose a general theoretical frame of reference capable of bringing together the key variables in a simple, theoretically sound, and empirically operational system.

Abstract: "Agriculture, and especially the agriculture of the LDC's is the stage on which the world drama of population is being played. The problem is that the plot has not yet been fully understood nor the dramatis personae fully identified. This is the most urgent task of the study of population and development."' The lack of conceptual clarity about the way in which agricultural development, technological change, and the demographic transition interact with one another is not caused by a paucity of theoretical and empirical work in the several fields separately. The literature on agricultural development is enormous,2 as are the literatures on general economic development3 and population change in relation to economic change.4 But these separate approaches often seem to represent totally different perspectives on the same process. In essence, the variables of one approach are parameters to another. Although understandable, this situation is neither desirable nor necessary. In fact, there already exists a general theoretical frame of reference capable of bringing together the key variables in a simple, theoretically sound, and empirically operational system. This framework, proposed sometime ago by Ester Boserup, has suffered a curious neglect. The present essay attempts a more formal statement of this model, suggests some further modifications, and then looks at possible policy inferences. The role of population growth is central in our considerations.