Agriculture and GDP Per Capita PPP

[phk]

I was in a debate with a girl somewhere and this is what I used to help prove a point.

All stats on the bottom.






summ

    Variable |       Obs        Mean    Std. Dev.       Min        Max
-------------+--------------------------------------------------------
     Country |         0
GDP_PPP_pe~a |       185    13405.65    14559.11        332      83841
   PercentAg |       186    .1540054    .1501916          0       .769


. reg  GDP_PPP_per_Capita PercentAg

      Source |       SS       df       MS              Number of obs =     185
-------------+------------------------------           F(  1,   183) =  107.19
       Model |  1.4407e+10     1  1.4407e+10           Prob > F      =  0.0000
    Residual |  2.4596e+10   183   134401768           R-squared     =  0.3694
-------------+------------------------------           Adj R-squared =  0.3659
       Total |  3.9002e+10   184   211967715           Root MSE      =   11593

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GDP_PPP_pe~a |      Coef.   Std. Err.      t    P>|t|     [95% Conf. Interval]
-------------+----------------------------------------------------------------
   PercentAg |  -58818.12   5681.119   -10.35   0.000    -70027.04   -47609.21
       _cons |   22493.85   1223.538    18.38   0.000     20079.79     24907.9
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[phk]

what point were you trying to prove?

Some people think a country can be made prosperous by more agriculture, or more people working in agriculture. It's quite idiotic. But of course Phknrocket might be trying to prove some other point, I dunno.

Exactly it.

My data set is from the IMF, which I forgot to disclose in my first post.

Btw if you're stuck in a heated debate, learn stata and econometrics and find data sets. Nice graphs are a great way to get your point across.

[phk]

what point were you trying to prove?

Some people think a country can be made prosperous by more agriculture, or more people working in agriculture. It's quite idiotic. But of course Phknrocket might be trying to prove some other point, I dunno.

Well, there is no doubt that increased ag employment would help rural America.  And while the correlation is absolutely clear, a robust ag sector is vital to our economy.  We have some of the best farm land on earth and we'd be stupid not to take advantage of that simply because somebody in a third world country could produce less vigorous, less nutritionally balanced foods more cheaply.

America already has the most farmlands in the world. And also the most productive, though that might have more to do with vastly better irrigation and better infrastructure to get the food to market. And we get it done with much less manual labor than developing countries. Don't you think that is better, since it's being produced at a cheaper cost? You could argue we need more farming in America, but it shouldn't and won't be a major source of employment. It should remain right around 2-3%, where it is currently.

Bear in mind, production of food is not a problem. With that said productivity in agriculture is already sky high due to mechanization which is the reason why there isn't much more job creation in that sector.

Btw agricultural employment in the US is <1%.

[phk]

This is probably another reason.

Year to date volatility is quite high with respect to agricultural commodities. Rice and Sugar farmers would face a depression while Coffee farmers would be riding a bubble.

[phk]

While certainly agriculture would not create large numbers of jobs, it would still be a good idea to combat the replacement of agricultural land with economically non-productive residential sprawl, as has taken over so much rich agricultural land in the Central Valley and in parts of the Midwest.

The American dream is to live in your own single family home. We'd have to have a major shift in societal values and expectations before people from all income groups will be clamoring to live in apartment buildings again.

Even than I'd argue there'd be excess farm output. We have an obesity problem here and are still net exporters of food.