American agricultural economist whose influential studies of the role of “human capital”—education, talent, energy, and will—in economic development won him a share (with Sir Arthur Lewis) of the 1979 Nobel Prize for Economics.
In Transforming Traditional Agriculture (1964), Schultz challenged the prevailing view, held by development economists, that farmers in developing countries were irrational in their unwillingness to innovate. He argued that, to the contrary, the farmers were making rational responses to high taxes and artificially low crop prices set by their governments. Schultz also noted that governments in developing countries lacked the agricultural extension services critical for training farmers in new methods. He viewed agricultural development as a precondition for industrialization.
A pioneer in the effort to integrate the economic analysis of the problems of agriculture in the context of the global economy, moved the boundaries of the study of the agricultural economy beyond the traditional rural management studies exploring the interactions between agriculture and the other productive activities in the economy. Its key work was the publication of "The Economic Organization of Agriculture" in the early 50s where he developed, lucidly, these ideas.
Three areas of economics predominantly occupied its exceptional capacity for reflection and creativity. They were the role of agricultural research as a source of growth in agriculture, the rationality of peasant agriculture and the role of investment in education and health (human capital formation) in the process of economic development.
He conceptualized the economic analysis of agricultural research defined as an activity where costs are incurred and generate revenue, private and social character and whose consequences affect both consumers and producers of agricultural goods. This line of thought was a pioneer and was instrumental in giving agricultural research entity as a activity of primary importance in the economic development process.
The analysis of the peasant economy, based on detailed case studies, Prof. Schultz led to conclude that the allocation of resources in this important sector of agriculture in the developing world, was guided by the same principles of maximization postulates the economic theory, and validated in economies with higher degrees of development.
Consequently, he concluded Schultz-rural poverty, it is due in large part to the improper use of productive resources, or the indolence of farmers, but to the lack of alternative sources of production, ie technologies that allow to increase the revenue generated by the resources-land, water, very little capital and labor-abundant habitualmenete available.
These ideas were expressed through loud and clear on "Transforming Traditional Agriculture" a brief but profound work published in the mid-sixties, called to exercise a pervasive influence on the conceptualisation of the development process and consequently the action agencies technical assistance and financing of agriculture. The slogan "poor but efficient" paradigm became the situation of vast sectors of the peasantry in the world.
The work of Prof. Schultz on the peasant economy allowed simultaneously illuminate another aspect of the economic reality of the developing countries. The study of peasant agriculture was established that improving the quality of inputs (seeds, fertilizers, machinery) and making them accessible to farmers, it could improve the economic condition of the peasantry. Labor being the most abundant factor in these economies, by extension then, the improvement of the productive capacity of the population investing in the economic agent was a natural path that would enable access to better job opportunities and better quality of life.
This led him to examine closely the role of investment in education and health as key to generate increases in the productive capacity of the population. Empirical studies on these subjects endorsed, again and again, the validity of these assumptions. In the last quarter century numerous studies have refined the validity and relevance of this approach. "The economic value of education" (1963) and "Investing in people: the economics of population quality" (1980) are two classics in this field.
He criticized protectionism by rich countries to their agriculture, noting the additional cost imposed such policies to the rest of the world community.
He believed in the value of ideas, struggled to impose their own, aiming always to improve the chances for a better realization of the life of every individual.
Among his publications were Agriculture in an Unstable Economy (1945), The Economic Value of Education (1963), Economic Growth and Agriculture (1968), Investment in Human Capital (1971), and Investing in People: The Economics of Population Quality (1981).
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