The global challenge to create jobs and improve the quality of informal employment remains daunting.   Traditionally, agriculture has been a major employer.   This is one reason why it has been at the center of discussions about poverty reduction and development. As countries develop and people spend more income on higher valued, non-traditional food and non-food items, agriculture’s role as employer declines (agriculture’s jobs paradox), even though the decline in agriculture’s labor share observed at first, should not be confounded with a continuing increase in absolute terms for quite some time. 

We invite the submission of papers that address these and related questions for presentation at the World Bank in Washington D.C. on Tuesday-Wednesday March 19-20, 2019. 

To be considered for this conference, full papers need to be submitted by December 14, 2018, to fowag2019@gmail.com. (Abstracts will not be considered.) Decisions about acceptance will be communicated in early January 2019. Travel and lodging costs for one presenter per paper will be covered. The scope is global (including developing and developed countries) and the perspective can be theoretical, comparative historical, and/or empirical, but with a focus on informing policy making to generate more, better and inclusive jobs in agriculture.