Background
BERRY, Robert Albert was born in 1937 in Street Marys, Ontario, Canada.
BERRY, Robert Albert was born in 1937 in Street Marys, Ontario, Canada.
Bachelor of Arts University Western Ontario, 1959. Doctor of Philosophy Princeton University, 1963.
Research Staff Economics, Assistant Professor, Assistant Director, Economics Growth Center, Association Professor, Yale University, 1962-1965,1965-1967, 1966-1968, 1970-1972, 1967-1972. Economics Adviser, Ford Foundation, Bogota, Columbia, 1968-1969. Adviser, Head Planning Department, Columbia, 1970-1971.
Association Professor, University Western Ontario,
1972-1974.
Member, International Labour Office World Employment Mission, Philippines, 1973. Economics, World Bank, 1974-1975.
Member, Musgrave Tax Mission, Bolivia, 1976. Consultant World Bank Missions, Pakistan, Colombia, 1980.
Professor of Economics, University Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, since 1974.
Editorial Board, Sociedad y Desarrolo, since 1979. North-South Canadian J. Latin American Studies, since 1975, Canadian J. Development Studies, since 1979.
(incl: A Theoritcal Frmework: The Distribution Record in C...)
My work to date has focussed mainly on agriculture, labour markets, and income distribution in developing countries,
with special attention to Columbia. One major thread has been the effects of agrarian structure, and especially the size distribution of farms, on agricultural output and on the distribution of income generated by agriculture. The potential productivity advantages of small farms are demonstrated and interpreted in this work.
More recently I have been studying small-scale industry with a view to assessing the extent of parallelism between the two sectors in this regard. Work on labour markets (especially Columbia’s) has been mainly in the context of an attempt to assess the sources of income and welfare inequality in developing countries, and its relation to public policy. Studies of open urban unemployment in Columbia led me to question the centrality of this phenomenon in the interpretation of the economic setting of poorer families in the less developed countries.
Intensive data work on income distribution trends in Columbia and the Philippines reflects concern that such causal analyses have little chance of paying off unless data problems are given high priority.