As part of the Brown Bag Lunch series, the International Economics Department at the Graduate Institute is pleased to invite you to a public talk given by Nicholas Tyack, PhD student in Development Economics.

Nicholas will present his research work entitled Genetic resources and agricultural productivity in the developing world.

Abstract: The Green Revolution was a major public sector investment in the development of improved crop varieties, especially for rice and wheat, that led to the uptake in many countries of a package of fertilizers and high-yielding modern varieties. A number of studies have demonstrated that the Green Revolution boosted agricultural production and crop yields (Evenson & Gollin 2000; Evenson & Gollin 2003). However, to what extent were increases in agricultural productivity attributable directly to the diffusion of modern crop varieties? In this paper, I investigate the contributions of modern genetic resources to land and labor productivity in the developing world from 1960 to 2005, using a cross-country database on agricultural productivity including 77 developing countries. I employ panel data methods, and include a number of variables to disentangle other drivers of productivity growth such as increased use of inputs per hectare of fertilizers, machinery, & livestock; measures for human capital; country-level research & development expenditures; and changes in intellectual property regimes.