ABSTRACT
The fundamental issue of whether the peasant or subsistence farmer is an "economic man" has continued to be a major stimulus to empirical research. More recently the validity of the influence of economic incentives upon the behavior of peasant and subsistence farmers has been assessed by a growing number of studies dealing with the supply response of subsistence agriculture. Current research reveals that any proper assessment of the influence of economic incentives upon subsistence farmer supply behavior must make four critical distinctions. First, Acreage response must be distinguished from yield response to economic incentives. Second, the elasticity of response by agriculture as a whole must be separated from that of a single crop. Third, distinctions must be made as to the varying lengths of time involved in the estimated elasticity. And finally, the elasticity of farm production as a whole must be distinguished from the elasticity of a marketed surplus.
