Syllabus – Agricultural and Food Policy Analysis – ISET – Page 1 of 7

Agricultural Economics I: Agricultural and Food Policy Analysis

Course Syllabus MA Program in Economics

International School of Economics at Tbilisi State University (ISET) Professor: Adam Pellillo Email: adam.pellillo@iset.ge Office: Room 6.7 Office Hours: After each class for two hours and by appointment Class dates/times: See the course schedule for the 2nd mini-term Location: Room 5.1 Course: Class 2014, 2nd mini-term

3 credits, 14 lectures, 1 ½ hour each.

Course Goals

The goals of the course are to:

Become acquainted with the effects of agricultural and food policies

Assess the role of government in a market economy

Understand the importance of institutions and organizations in a market economy

Identify potential policy problems related to rural and agricultural development

Study the transition of the agricultural sector

Become familiar with the basic concepts and frameworks used in agricultural and food policy analysis

Assess how policies are designed, implemented, and evaluated in practice, with a clear

understanding of the political economy of agricultural and food policy analysis

Become equipped with skills for analyzing agricultural and food policies and monitoring and evaluation of their impacts ex ante and ex post

Course Content, Evaluation, and Grading Your final grade in this course will be based on your performance on a cumulative final exam (60% of the final grade), a short co-authored paper (20% of the final grade), and presentations and discussions in a short conference (20% of the final grade). Each class session will be a mixture of lectures and class discussions. Please read the assigned texts

before coming to each class and be prepared to critique and discuss them.

Syllabus – Agricultural and Food Policy Analysis – ISET – Page 2 of 7

Tentative Course Schedule

Lecture Topic Readings

Lecture 1 Introduction to Agricultural and Food Policy Analysis

T.W. Schultz’s Nobel Prize Lecture (1979)

Lecture 2 The Puzzle of Agricultural Productivity in Georgia

Agriculture in Transition

The ISET Economist (2012) Rozelle and Swinnen (2004)

Lecture 3 Agriculture in Transition (Continued)

Ellman (1988) Lerman, Csaki, and Feder (2004), Ch. 2

Lecture 4 Agricultural Market Specifics

Binswanger and Deininger (1997) Bezemer and Headey (2008)

Lecture 5 Insights from New Institutional Economics

North (1991), Olson (1996), Lindsay (2000), Williamson (2000)

Swinnen, Vandeplas, and Maertens (2010)

Lecture 6 Case Study: Embedded Institutions and the Persistence of Large Farms in

Russia Case Study: Property Rights in Mestia

Koester (2005) Koester and Petrick (2010)

GA, GYLA, TI-G, RMAG (2011)

Lecture 7 Agricultural and Food Policy Objectives Koester and El-Agraa (2003)

Lecture 8 Agricultural and Food Policy Objectives, Continued

Koester and El-Agraa (2003) Van Tongeren (2008)

Lecture 9 Agricultural and Food Policy Evaluation

Van Tongeren (2008) GTZ Evaluation Criteria

Lecture 10 Impact Evaluation and Field Experimental Methods

Gilbert (2013) Herberich, Levitt, and List (2009)

Lecture 11 Impact Evaluation and Field Experimental Methods

MCC (2012)

Lecture 12 The Political Economy of Agricultural Policy

Swinnen (2010)

Lecture 13 The Political Economy of Agricultural Policy

Acemoglu and Robinson (2013)

Lecture 14 Conference: Presentations and Discussant Comments

TBA

Syllabus – Agricultural and Food Policy Analysis – ISET – Page 3 of 7

Lecture and Reference List

* Denotes required reading, available in the course package of reading materials; other readings are highly recommended and are available from the instructor upon request. Introduction to Agricultural and Food Policy Analysis

*T.W. Schultz’s Nobel Prize Lecture (1979) http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/1979/schultz-lecture.html World Bank World Development Report, 2008: Agriculture for Development. International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) (2012). Global Food Policy Report. The Puzzle of Agricultural Productivity Agriculture in Transition *Ellman, Michael. (1988). “Soviet Agricultural Policy.” Economic & Political Weekly, 23(24): 1208-

1210. *Lerman, Zvi, Csaba Csaki, and Gershon Feder. (2004). Agriculture in Transition: Land Policies and

Evolving Farm Structures in Post-Soviet Countries. Lexington Books, Maryland. Chapter 2: “The Arena and the Common Heritage.”

*Rozelle, Scott and Johan F. M. Swinnen. (2004). “Success and Failure of Reform: Insights from the

Transition of Agriculture.” Journal of Economic Literature, XLII: 404-456. *The ISET Economist, October 11, 2012. “The Puzzle of Agricultural Productivity in Georgia (and

Armenia).” http://www.iset.ge/blog/?p=836 Swinnen, Johan F. M. (2003). “The Political Economy of Land Reform Choices in Central and

Eastern Europe.” Economics of Transition, 7(3): 637-664. Swinnen, Johan F. M., Liesbeth Dries, and Karen Macours (2005). “Transition and Agricultural

Labor.” Agricultural Economics 32(1): 15–34. Koester, Ulrich (2008). “The Profession of (Agricultural) Economists and the Experience of

Transition.” In: Csaki and Forgacs (eds.), Agricultural Economics and Transition: What was Expected, What We Observed, the Lessons Learned. Studies on the Agricultural and Food Sector in Central and Eastern Europe. IAMO, pp.23-43

World Bank Program Snapshots for Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia World Bank. 2009. Georgia: Agricultural and Rural Enterprise Development. No. 70562. Georgian Agriculture and Food Sector Development Strategy, 2013-2020.

Syllabus – Agricultural and Food Policy Analysis – ISET – Page 4 of 7

Agricultural Markets *Binswanger, Hans P. and Klaus Deininger (1997). “Explaining Agricultural and Agrarian Policies in

Developing Countries.” Journal of Economic Literature, XXXV: 1958-2005. *Bezemer, Dirk and Derek Headey (2008). “Agriculture, Development, and Urban Bias.” World

Development, 7: 1-40. Gardner, Bruce (1987). The Economics of Agricultural Policies. Macmillan Publishing Company, New

York. The Institutional Environment *North, Douglass (1991). “Institutions.” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 5(1): 97-112. *Olson, Mancur. (1996). “Distinguished Lecture on Economics in Government: Big Bills Left on

the Sidewalk: Why Some Nations are Rich, and Others Poor.” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 10(2): 3-24.

*Lindsay, Stace (2000). “Culture, Mental Models, and National Prosperity.” In Lawrence E. Harrison

and Samuel P. Huntington (eds.), Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress, Basic Books, pp. 282-295.

*Williamson, Oliver (2000). “The New Institutional Economics: Taking Stock, Looking Ahead.”

Journal of Economic Literature, XXXVIII: 595-613. *Koester, Ulrich (2005). “A Revival of Large Farms in Eastern Europe—How Important Are

Institutions?” Agricultural Economics, 32(s1): 103-113. *Koester, Ulrich and Martin Petrick (2010). “Embedded Institutions and the Persistence of Large

Farms in Russia.” In Imre Ferto, Csaba Forgacs, Attila Jambor (eds.), Essays in Honour of Professor Csaba Csaki, Budapest, pp. 57-76.

*Swinnen, Johan F. M., Anneleen Vandeplas, and Miet Maertens. (2010). “Liberalization,

Endogenous Institutions, and Growth: A Comparative Analysis of Agricultural Reforms in Africa, Asia, and Europe.” World Bank Economic Review, 24(3): 412-445.

*Green Alternative, Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association, Transparency International Georgia, and

Regional Media Association of Georgia (2011). “Problems Related to the Protection of Property Rights – The Case of Mestia.” Available at: http://transparency.ge/en/post/report/problems-related-protection-property-rights-case-mestia-july-2011 . Last accessed: April 2, 2013.

North, Douglass (1990). Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance. Cambridge

University Press, Cambridge UK. World Bank World Development Report, 2002: Building Institutions for Markets

Syllabus – Agricultural and Food Policy Analysis – ISET – Page 5 of 7

Brümmer, Bernhard and Ulrich Koester (2006) “Institutional Changes for Agricultural and Rural Development in the CEEC and CIS Region.” eJade – Electronic Journal of Agricultural and Development Economics (FAO). 3(2): 144-179.

Deininger, Klaus and Gershon Feder. (2009). “Land Registration, Governance, and Development:

Evidence and Implications for Policy.” World Bank Research Observer, 24(2): 233-266. Agricultural and Food Policy *Koester, Ulrich and Ali El-Agraa (2003). “The Common Agricultural Policy.” In Ali El-Agraa (ed.),

The European Union: Economics and Policies. Seventh Edition. Pearson Education Limited. Harlow, Essex, UK, pp. 354-390.

*Van Tongeren, Frank (2008). “Agricultural Policy Design and Implementation: A Synthesis.”

OECD Food, Agriculture, and Fisheries Working Papers, No. 7, OECD Publishing. *GTZ Evaluation Criteria Gardner, Bruce (1987). The Economics of Agricultural Policies. Macmillan Publishing Company, New

York. Dethier, Jean-Jacques and Alexandra Effenberger (2011). “Agriculture and Development: A Brief

Review of the Literature.” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 5553. Policy Monitoring, Project Evaluation, and Impact Evaluation *Herberich, David H., Steven D. Levitt, and John A. List (2009). “Can Field Experiments Return

Agricultural Economics to the Glory Days?” American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 91(5): 1259-1265.

*Millennium Challenge Corporation (2012). “MCC’s First Impact Evaluations: Farmer Training

Activities in Five Countries.” Issue brief. *Gilbert, Natasha. (2013). “International Aid Projects Come Under the Microscope.” Nature,

493(7433): 462-463. Hayek, F.A. (1945). “The Use of Knowledge in Society.” American Economic Review, 35(4): 519-530. Harrison, Glenn W. and John A. List (2004). “Field Experiments.” Journal of Economic Literature,

XLII: 1009-1055. Angrist, Joshua D. and Jorn-Steffen Pischke. (2009). Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist’s

Companion. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. Deaton, Angus. (2010). “Instruments, Randomization, and Learning about Development.” Journal of

Economic Literature, 48: 424-455.

Syllabus – Agricultural and Food Policy Analysis – ISET – Page 6 of 7

Conley, Timothy and Christopher Udry. (2010). “Learning about a New Technology: Pineapple in

Ghana.” American Economic Review, 100(1): 35-69. List, John (2011). “Why Economists Should Conduct Field Experiments and 14 Tips for Pulling

One Off.” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 25(3): 3-16. The Political Economy of Agricultural Policy *De Gorter, H. and J. Swinnen (2002) “Political Economy of Agricultural Policy.” In: Gardner, B.

and G. Rausser, (Eds), Handbook of Agricultural Economics, pp. 1993- 1932. *Swinnen, Johan (2010). “The Political Economy of Agricultural and Food Policies: Recent

Contributions, New Insights, and Areas for Further Research.” Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, 32(1): 33-58.

*Acemoglu, Daron and James A. Robinson (2013). “Economics versus Politics: Pitfalls of Policy

Advice.” Journal of Economic Perspectives, forthcoming. Cole, Shawn (2009). “Fixing Market Failures or Fixing Elections? Agricultural Credit in India.”

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 1(1): 219-250.

Additional Topic Areas and Readings Agricultural Extension Birkhaeuser, Dean, Robert E. Evenson, and Gershon Feder. (1991). “The Economic Impact of

Agricultural Extension: A Review.” Economic Development and Cultural Change, 39(3): 607-650. Rural Credit Markets Besley, Timothy (1994). “How Do Market Failures Justify Interventions in Rural Credit Markets?”

The World Bank Research Observer, 9(1): 27-47. Koester, Ulrich (2001). “Agricultural Finance and Institutional Reforms in Transition Economies:

The 1990s and Challenges Ahead.” Quarterly Journal of International Agriculture, 40(4): 301-323. Risk and Agriculture “Barefoot Hedge-Fund Managers,” Chapter 6. Banerjee, Abhijit V. and Esther Duflo. (2011). Poor

Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty. New York: Perseus Books. Disasters in Agricultural Policy Li, Wei and Dennis Tao Yang. (2005). “The Great Leap Forward: Anatomy of a Central Planning

Disaster.” Journal of Political Economy, 113(4): 840-877.

Syllabus – Agricultural and Food Policy Analysis – ISET – Page 7 of 7

International Association of Agricultural Economists: http://www.iaae-agecon.org/ List of resources: http://www.iaae-agecon.org/resources/resources.html