Does Agriculture Really Matter for Economic Growth in Developing Countries?

This paper revisits the debate on the role of agriculture in promoting economic growth in a selection of nine developing countries. We investigated the causal linkages between agriculture and gross domestic product growth with the aid of directed acyclic graphs, a recently developed algorithm of inductive causation. The results suggest that while agriculture could be an engine of economic growth, the impact varies across countries. In some cases, we found strong evidence in support of the agriculture-led growth hypothesis. In contrast, the results for some other countries indicate that having a vibrant aggregate economy is a prerequisite for agricultural development. Le present article reexamine le debat sur le role de l'agriculture dans la promotion de la croissance economique de neuf pays en developpement. Nous avons etudie les liens de causalite entre l'agriculture et la croissance du PIB a l'aide de graphes acycliques orientes, un algorithme de causalite inductive recemment mis au point. Les resultats montrent que, meme si l'agriculture peut constituer un engin de croissance economique, son impact varie d'un pays a l'autre. Dans certains cas, nous avons obtenu des preuves solides qui appuient l'hypothese selon laquelle la croissance est motivee par l'agriculture. En revanche, les resultats obtenus dans le cas d'autres pays indiquent qu'une economie globale vigoureuse constitue une condition prealable au developpement de l'agriculture.