Agriculture plays a central role in economic history, and in fact it is only very recently that most of the world population has lived in cities. It has however often been assigned a rather passive role for development, although recent work has presented agriculture in a more favourable and dynamic light. Our work assesses the role of agriculture for development, both for example through its impact on long-run comparative development, and in terms of short-run technological and institutional change. Understanding the role of agriculture for development is of fundamental importance if we are to explain how present-day poor, largely rural economies can modernize.
This research has been funded by a number of large research grants. Currently ongoing are a prestigious Sapere Aude grant on “Rethinking the economic take-off of Denmark” (5,978,304 DKK) and another on “Conflict and Development” (5,725,440 DKK), both from Independent Research Fund Denmark, and both with Professor Paul Sharp as principal investigator.
Please address queries to the researcher responsible for this area: Paul Sharp
Other HEDG researchers who have worked or are working on this topic:
Philipp Ager
Thomas Barnebeck Andersen
Nina Boberg-Fazlic
Ingrid Henriksen
Peter Sandholt Jensen
Keith Andrew Meyers
Cristina Victoria Radu
PhD students:
Maja Uhre Pedersen
Xanthi Tsoukli