Structural Transformation, Agriculture, Climate, and the Environment

Abstract

This paper reviews the feedback between structural transformation and agriculture, on the one hand, and climate and the natural environment, on the other. The long-standing, dominant economic development narrative largely ignores nature’s influence on factor productivity and stocks, even as it increasingly illustrates how agricultural technological change and economic growth affect nature. We articulate some of the missing linkages and pose key policy research questions concerning structural transformation and the complex feedback among agriculture, nature, and economic growth processes, especially in low-income agrarian economies.