Thomas S. Jayne

Thomas Jayne

Contact Me

MSU Foundation Professor emeritus
Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics

Phone:
517-432-9802

Email:

Publications on Google Scholar

Thom Jayne is University Foundation Professor emeritus of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics at Michigan State University. He is a Fellow of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association and a Distinguished Fellow of the African Association of Agricultural Economists. His works span numerous topics, including food marketing and price policies, changes in land use patterns, sustainable intensification, employment, and rural transformation. He has mentored dozens of young African professionals and played a major role in building MSU’s partnerships with African agricultural policy research institutes. Thom is Adjunct Professor at the Indaba Agricultural Policy Research Institute in Lusaka, Zambia, a board member of the Regional Network of Agricultural Policy Research Institutes in Eastern and Southern Africa, and was a founding Co-Director of the Alliance for African Partnership at Michigan State University. In 2017, he became the Flagship Co-Leader of the CGIAR Policies, Institutions and Markets research program on Economy-wide Factors Affecting Agricultural Growth and Rural Transformation. In 2019, Jayne is seconded to the African Development Bank, serving as Special Advisor to the President. Over the past decade, he has received six research excellence awards, including the 2009 Outstanding Article Award in Agricultural Economics and the 2017 AAEA Bruce Gardner Memorial Prize for Applied Policy Analysis.

Current Research Interests

  • Agricultural and economic transformation in Africa. For example: 

    o Jayne, T.S., Jordan Chamberlin & Rui Benfica (2018). Africa's Unfolding Economic Transformation, Journal of Development Studies, 54(5), 777-787.

    o Yeboah, Kwame, & Jayne, T. S. (2018). Africa’s Evolving Employment Trends, Journal of Development Studies, 54(5), 803-832.

    o Jayne, T.S. and Ndibongo Traub, L. (2016). Megatrends Transforming Africa’s Food Systems. Foreign Affairs, special issue on African Farmers in the Digital Age, February 2016.

  • The causes and consequences of changing farm size distributions in Africa.  For example:

    o Muyanga, M., & Jayne, T. S. (2019). Revisiting the Farm Size-Productivity Relationship Based on a Relatively Wide Range of Farm Sizes: Evidence from Kenya. American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 101(4), 1140–1163, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajae/aaz003

    o Jayne, T. S., Chamberlin, J. B., Sitko, N., Traub, L. N., Yeboah, F., Muyanga, M., Answeeuw, W., Chapoto, A., Wineman, A. Y., Nkonde, C., & Kachule, R. (2016). Africa's changing farm size distribution patterns: the rise of medium-scale farms. Agricultural Economics, Volume 47(S1), 197-214.

    o Wineman, A., and T. S. Jayne. (2018). Land prices heading skyward? An analysis of farmland values across Tanzania. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, 39(3), https://doi.org/10.1093/aepp/ppx038

    Jayne, T.S., Jordan Chamberlin, Derek D. Headey (2014). Land pressures, the evolution of farming systems, and development strategies in Africa: A synthesis. Food Policy, 48, 1-17.
  • Sustainable intensification in Sub-Saharan Africa, with particular focus on strategies for promoting the effective use of fertilizers on smallholder farms. For example:

    o Jayne, T. S., Snapp, S., Place, F., & Sitko, N. (2019). Sustainable agricultural intensification in an era of rural transformation in Africa. Global Food Security, 20 (2019), 105–113.

    o Jayne, T. S., Mason, N., Burke, W., & Ariga, J. (2018). Taking stock of Africa’s second-generation agricultural input subsidy programs. Food Policy, 75 (February), 1-14.

    o Mason, N. M., Jayne, T. S., & van de Walle, N. (2017). The Political Economy of Fertilizer Subsidy Programs in Africa: Evidence from Zambia. American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 99(3), 705–731.

    o Jayne, T. S. & Rashid, R. (2013). Input Subsidy Programs in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Synthesis of Recent Evidence. Agricultural Economics, 44(6), 547-562.

People

News

Prospective Students

Resources

Michigan State University
  • Spartans Will.
  • © Michigan State University

MSU is an affirmative-action, equal-opportunity employer, committed to achieving excellence through a diverse workforce and inclusive culture that encourages all people to reach their full potential.

Michigan State University Extension programs and materials are open to all without regard to race, color, national origin, gender, gender identity, religion, age, height, weight, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, marital status, family status or veteran status. Issued in furtherance of MSU Extension work, acts of May 8 and June 30, 1914, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Quentin Tyler, Director, MSU Extension, East Lansing, MI 48824. This information is for educational purposes only. Reference to commercial products or trade names does not imply endorsement by MSU Extension or bias against those not mentioned.

The 4-H Name and Emblem have special protections from Congress, protected by code 18 USC 707.

We comply with the Federal Trade Commission 1998 Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).