Stage Segmentation of Rural Transformation and Comparisons Among Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, and Pakistan: Combining Machine Learning and New Structural Economics to Facilitate International Agricultural Development and Policy Design

ABSTRACT This paper contributes a new paradigm for international agricultural development research. It uses machine learning techniques to aid expert diagnosis of development problems in conjunction with New Structural Economics (NSE) to analyse and design policies to enable effective rural transformation. It conducts a multi‐country, multi‐regional, multi‐level and multi‐dimensional analysis in Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, and Pakistan to identify stage segmentations of rural transformation and examine stagewise associate policies and applicable learnings across each dimension. By presenting structured stages of rural transformation, we provide guidance on designing dynamic comparative‐advantage‐adapting policies that are able to adapt at each stage. This analytical procedure can serve other relevant agricultural development studies.