Agric. Econ. - Czech, 2014, 60(5):232-245 | DOI: 10.17221/95/2013-AGRICECON

Can food availability influence economic growth - the case of African countriesOriginal Paper

Mary Oluwatoyin AGBOOLA, Mehmet BALCILAR
Economics Department, Faculty of Business and Economics, Eastern Mediterranean University, Gazimagusa, Turkey

There is a growing consensus that food security is vital to the general wellbeing of any economy, but a far less consensus on whether food security can spur economic growth in a country. Many economic growth strategies focus on specific interventions (trade openness index, tropical climatic variables, working age population share etc.), but many factors, such as food availability, female education and health outcomes, can potentially have a profound influence on economic growth. To explore this hypothesis more systematically, this paper employs a rich cross-country dataset of 124 countries to examine the impact of food security, using food availability as a proxy on economic growth. This paper examines the impact of food shortages on African economic growth rates. It does so by extending the Barro growth model to include food availability as a right hand-side variable and by distinguishing African countries with food shortages from others. Based on the cross-country regressions results, the paper concludes that the improved food availability indeed contributes to the improved economic growth in general, as well as in Africa.

Keywords: African dummy, food crisis, food security, Africa

Published: May 31, 2014  Show citation

ACS AIP APA ASA Harvard Chicago Chicago Notes IEEE ISO690 MLA NLM Turabian Vancouver
AGBOOLA MO, BALCILAR M. Can food availability influence economic growth - the case of African countries. Agric. Econ. - Czech. 2014;60(5):232-245. doi: 10.17221/95/2013-AGRICECON.
Share...
Download citation
  • BibTeX (.bib)
  • Bookends (.ris)
  • EasyBib (.ris)
  • EndNote (.enw)
  • EndNote 8 (.xml)
  • ISI WoS (.isi)
  • Medlars (.medlars)
  • Mendeley (.ris)
  • MODS (.xml)
  • Papers (.ris)
  • RefWorks (.txt)
  • RefManager (.ris)
  • RIS (.ris)
  • MS Word (.xml)
  • Zotero (.ris)
    • Open full article

    References

    1. Acemoglu D., Johnson S., Robinson J.A. (2001): The colonial origins of comparative development. American Economic Review, 91: 1369-1401. Go to original source...
    2. Alfaro L., Areendam C., Kalemli-Ozcan S., Seyek S. (2004): FDI and economic growth: The role of local financial markets. Journal of International Economies, 64: 89-112. Go to original source...
    3. Ashley R.A. (2009): Assessing the credibility of instrumental variables inference with imperfect instruments via sensitivity analysis. Journal of Applied Econometrics, 24: 325-337. Go to original source...
    4. Barro R.J. (1991): Economic growth in a cross section of countries. Quarterly Journal of Economies, 106: 407-444. Go to original source...
    5. Barro R.J., Sala-i-Martin X. (1992): Convergence. Journal of Political Economy, 100: 223-251. Go to original source...
    6. Block A.S. (2001): Does Africa grow differently. Journal of Development Economics, 65: 443-467. Go to original source...
    7. Bloom D.E., Sachs J.D. (1998). Geography, Demography and Economics Growth in Africa. Brookings Paper on Economic Activity 2. The Brookings Institute, Washington. Go to original source...
    8. Burger R., Du Plessis S. (2006): Examining the Robustness of Competing Explanations of Slow Growth in African Countries. Credit Research Paper No. 06/02, University of Nottingham, Nottingham.
    9. Diop A., Gilles D., Gilles S. (2010): Is per capita growth hampered by poor governance and weak institutionsan empirical study on the ECOWAS countries. African Development Review, 22: 265-275. Go to original source...
    10. Dorward A. (2012): The short-and medium-term impact of rises in staple food prices. Food security, 4: 633-645. Go to original source...
    11. Easterly W., Levine R. (1997): Africa's growth tragedy: Policies and ethnic divisions. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 112: 403-436. Go to original source...
    12. Easterly W., Levine R. (1998): Troubles with the neighbors: Africa's NEIGHBORS, Africa's OPPORTUNITY. Journal of African Economies, 7: 120-142. Go to original source...
    13. Englebert P. (2000). Solving the mystery of African dummy. World Development, 28: 1821-1835. Go to original source...
    14. Glewwe P., Maiga E., Zheng H. (2007): The Contribution of Education to Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: A review of the Evidence. Department of Applied Economics University of Minnesota, St. Paul.
    15. Gyimah-Brempong K. (2010): Education and Economic Development in Africa. Proceedings of the 4 th African Economic Conference, October 27-29, 2010, Tunisia.
    16. Hoeffler A.E. (2002): The augmented Solow model and the African growth debate. The Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 64: 135-158. Go to original source...
    17. Kormendi R.C., Meguire P.G. (1985): Macroeconomic determinants of growth: Cross-Country evidence. Journal of Monetary Economics, 16: 141-163. Go to original source...
    18. Krueger B.A., Lindahl M. (2000): Education for Growth: Why and for Whom. NBER Working Paper No. 7591. National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc., Cambridge. Go to original source...
    19. Ledyaeva S., Linden M. (2008): Determinants of economic growth empirical evidence from Russia regions. The European Journal of Comparative Economics, 5: 87-105.
    20. Rupasingha A., Stephen J.G., Freshwater D. (2002): Social and institutional factors as determinants of economic growth: Evidence from the United States counties. Regional Science, 81: 139-155. Go to original source...
    21. Sachs J.D., Warner A.M. (1997): Sources of slow growth in African economies. Journal of African Economies, 6: 335-376. Go to original source...
    22. Sala-i-Martin X. (1997): I just ran two-million regressions. American Economic Review, 87: 178-183. Go to original source...
    23. Scanlan S.J. (2001): Food availability and access in lesserindustrialized societies: A test and interpretation of neo-Malthusian and technological theories. Sociological Forum, 16: 230-259. Go to original source...
    24. Timmer C.P. (2004): Food Security and Economic Growth: An Asian Perspective. In: Heinz W. Arndt Memorial Lecture Australian National University. Canberra, November 22, 2004.
    25. Tsangarides C. (2005): Growth Empirics under Model Uncertainty: Is Africa Different? IMF Working Paper No. 05/18. International Monetary Fund, Washington. Go to original source...
    26. Weber D.J. (2002): Policies to stimulate growth: Should we invest in health or education. Applied Economics, 34: 1633-1643. Go to original source...
    27. Yang H., Reichert P., Abbaspour K.C., Alexander J.B. (2003): A water resources threshold and its implication for food security. Environmental Science and Technology, 37: 3048-3054. Go to original source... Go to PubMed...

    This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY NC 4.0), which permits non-comercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original publication is properly cited. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.


    Return to the content