Macroeconomic Policies and Agricultural Development in Developing Countries: Lessons from Emerging Economies

Abstract

This paper brings to the fore the macroeconomic policy issues in emerging and developing countries with respect to agricultural development. By exploring theoretical and empirical evidences, it describes the macroeconomic tools that have been deployed by various governments of selected emerging and developing nations especially between 2000 and 2010. The major findings are that emerging countries like Brazil, China and India have systematically manipulated macroeconomic tools in either jumpstarting or fast-tracking their economic development. It recommends that in order to foster development, developing countries need to learn to manipulate macroeconomic policies relating to taxation, trade, government expenditure and exchange rate.
Key Words: Macroeconomic policies; Agricultural development; Descriptive; Developing countries; Emerging economies