Government expenditures on agriculture in Latin America

Government expenditure is primarily determinant of the pace and pattern of agricultural growth. The size of government allocations to agriculture is an important indicator of government commitment to agricultural growth. How the resource are allocated is an important determinant of the efficiency of agriculture growth. Despite the central role of government expenditure little comparative analysis has been made of its size, its allocation, and its effect on agricultural production. As a result, there has been little pressure to develop an adequate data base for such requisite data discourages initiation of such analysis. In the research reported her Victor Elias concentrates on developing an adequate data base for analyzing government expenditures on agriculture for nine Latin American countries for the period 1950-78. Compiling the data on a comparable basis overtime and across countries was a time consuming process. Continued effort is needed to refine and enlarge the data set. Nevertheless, Elias is able to provide useful information on the variability of government expenditures on agriculture and its causes. As a longtime specialist in analysis of sources of growth, Elias uses the data for preliminary exploration of the effect of government expenditures on growth. Even with the crude data and analytical tools thus far assembled he is able to develop significant results. Refinement of the data and the analysis will continue. In the meantime Victor Elias and the International Food Policy Research Institute are pleased to make available the basic data so laboriously assembled. We hope that it will stimulate further improvement of the data base, similar analysis elsewhere, and fruitful interpretation of the role of public expenditure on agriculture and its interaction with other public policies. This research is part of a larger effort at the International Food Policy Research Institute concerned with strategies of development as they impinge on the agriculture and other sectors, as well as work on public expenditure.