An Approach to the Determinants of the Agricultural Output Dynamics in the USA - The Agricultural Economics of the 21st Century - page 17

economies, where the pressures of the rules from the negotiations of the
World Trade Organization are a reality.
From the data description it was possible to conclude that in agriculture,
despite the increase in productivity, this was not sufficient to avoid the
reduction in the weight of the farming output in the economy. On the other
hand, as expected, the percentage of agricultural employment in farming
diminished. This is a tendency verified by many developed countries, namely
in North America and in West Europe. The reduction in fossil fuel energy
consumption reveals concerns with the environment and sustainability. There
are, however, some environmental problems in agriculture, because the levels
of methane and nitrous oxide are emitted by this sector. The percentage
augmentation of population in urban agglomerations and the reduction of
the rural population need microanalysis, because this can be good for eco-
nomic dynamics and/or bad for regional asymmetries, for example. The
performance of exports seems to confirm these apparently good economic
dynamics. However, the financial crisis of 2008 had consequences in many
economic indicators such as the central government debt in percentage of the
GDP, the investment in percentage of the GDP, and the GDP growth rates.
The econometric results reveal that there are negative and strong correla-
tions between the percentage of agricultural output, the agricultural produc-
tivity, the population in large urban centers, and the gross domestic product
per capita. On the other hand, there is a positive a strong relationship between
the level of agricultural output and the percentage of agricultural land and
rural population. The results obtained from the estimations confirm these
findings and show that despite agricultural productivity, in the USA, the
inflation of consumer price rates, also, influences the percentage of the
agricultural output. All statistic tests reveal an absence of problems with the
autocorrelation, the co-integration of the variables, and the heteroske-
dasticity. The Ramsey RESET test, using powers of the fitted values, shows
a lack of variables in all models. This may be an interesting finding to develop
in future research related with these issues.
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