Mercati imperfetti e modelli di comportamento delle famiglie contadine

Imperfect Markets and Agricultural Household Models - This essay revisits and comments on agricultural household models, with particular reference to farmers’ production decisions in imperfect markets. It is in five parts. The first part underlines the role of small farmers in economic development and emphasises the market imperfections they face. When the household acts in imperfect markets, his preferences over consumption influence his production decisions. In this case consumption and production decisions are said to be non-separable. The second part investigates the concept of non-separability and presents a mathematical model as well. The third part shows that several farmers’ decisions, that according to the orthodox neoclassical theory appear irrational, look perfectly sound within a non-separable framework. The fourth part examines some empirical studies on non-separability, and some estimations of households’ labour and transaction costs, that can generate non-separability. Finally, the fifth and last part, on the one hand, suggests that the theory and the practice of agricultural household models have not been fully developed so far but, on the other hand, it maintains that there are bright perspectives for future researches, given the developments in the specification of production functions, in econometric estimations, and given the existence of increasingly reliable database.

Elisabeth Sadoulet, Mercati imperfetti e modelli di comportamento delle famiglie contadine in "QA Rivista dell’Associazione Rossi-Doria" 3/2001, pp , DOI: