This article seeks to provide a new analytical framework based on factor endowments to understand growth in rural economies without structural transformation. More concretely, it explores the variation in farmers' ability to respond to new commercial opportunities. To complement the extensive literature on the economic and institutional effects of factor endowments, this paper revisits two influential yet controversial theories: Mark Elvin's high-level equilibrium trap for areas with high population densities in a closed arable frontier, and Hla Myint's vent for surplus for areas with surpluses of land and labour. We argue that these become more operational if reinterpreted by Boserupian land intensification processes. By lifting the neo-classical constraints on factor relationships, this paper contributes by exploring the mechanisms by which factor endowments might preclude the transformation. Understanding the different dynamics of cultivation in relation to land and labour use, technological choices, saving capacity, and potential linkages to industrialization becomes of even greater significance as these areas may be found within the same countries at a given time.
KEYWORDSFrontier economies; high level equilibrium trap; agricultural intensification; Boserup and involution Successful agrarian transformations are a rather recent and exceptional development in history. By 'success' we mean a sustained raise in productivity in the agricultural sector resulting in greater production output, relatively and absolutely, by lesser labour input. No country has managed to sustain a transition from absolute poverty without improving both land and labour productivity in agriculture (Timmer 2009(Timmer , 2016. This failure in achievement defines the predominant rural trait in poverty and inequality indicators both today and in the past. Unsurprisingly the modernization of agriculture, within the greater context of economic development and structural change, has attracted much scholarly attention from economic historians and development economists.Although economic growth in the rural economy is a necessary condition for structural change, it is not sufficient. This article claims that this may be partly attributable to the dynamics of transformation among traditional rural economies, and not exclusively on
