The Transition from Small to Large Farms in Developing Economies: A Welfare Analysis
构建了一个概念框架，比较小农生产系统与大型农场系统对国内主粮生产的影响，通过模拟分析发现转型为大型农场几乎总是降低农村家庭福利，但增加总产量和城乡总福利，且农村就业不减少。
Promoting smallholder production systems as a growth and poverty‐reduction strategy versus supporting an institutional framework that enables endogenous and voluntary consolidation of smallholder farms into larger operations is a central debate for economic development and food security in low‐ and middle‐income countries. We propose an integrated conceptual framework to compare the two alternative farming systems for producing a domestic staple commodity, focusing on key economic factors that differentiate them, including labor inefficiency of larger farms, credit constraints for smallholders, and differences in farm–retail price spreads. We derive equilibrium expressions for economic welfare for smallholder farmers and urban consumers under the two farming systems, and parameterize the model based on publicly available data and recent empirical literature. An extensive simulation analysis reveals several key results from transforming to a large‐farm equilibrium: ( a ) rural household welfare almost always declines; ( b ) total production of the staple almost always increases; ( c ) the sum of urban and rural household welfare almost always increases, often by substantial amounts; and ( d ) rural employment does not decrease, even with modest increases in capital intensity on large farms. Policies to promote farm consolidation, while protecting rural households from welfare losses, for example through income transfers, can achieve Pareto improvements for nearly all of the comparative equilibria studied.