Review of Book 1 of the Handbook of Agricultural Economics

Abstract

Most of the chapters of the Book 1 report on empirical findings of cross sectional or panel estimates for farm or household models, occasionally of sector models. These models generally conform to profit or utility maximization, often using duality theory. The authors emphasize that heterogeneity of commodities and households should duly be accounted for. They point to the recurrent problems of endogeneity of explanatory variables, call for adequate testing of rational expectations hypothesis, the identification of credit constraints, and imperfections in the price transmission from consumer to producer. The Handbook offers thorough and extensive surveys of literature, more than it gives guidelines or techniques for research. The upcoming Book 2 will expectedly describe the role of agriculture in a wider economic setting, but within this Book 1, because the editors do not include linking sections that cross reference between chapters, it is left to the reader to identify the role and place of the various chapters in the field of agricultural economics and agriculture in general. As agricultural production and technical change are now discussed without reference to biological potentials, feed balances and land balances, it seems that the field has lost much of its interdisciplinary inspiration. This is regrettable.