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American Economic Review Vol. 104 No. 5 2014

Agricultural Productivity Differences across Countries

Douglas Gollin1; David Lagakos2; Michael E. Waugh3

1 University of Oxford, Department of International Development, Queen Elizabeth House, 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TB, United Kingdom (e-mail: ) · 2 University of California-San Diego, University of Economics 0508, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093, and NBER (e-mail: ) · 3 New York University, Kaufman Management Center, 44 West Fourth St. 7-160, New York, NY 10012-1126 (e-mail: )

Abstract

Recent studies argue that cross-country labor productivity differences are much larger in agriculture than in the aggregate. We reexamine the agricultural productivity data underlying this conclusion using new evidence from disaggregate sources. We find that for the world's staple grains-maize, rice, and wheat-cross-country differences in the quantity of grain produced per worker are enormous according to both micro- and macrosources. Our findings validate the idea that understanding agricultural productivity is at the heart of understanding world income inequality.

DOI
10.1257/aer.104.5.165
Volume
104
Issue
5
Pages
165-170
Language
en
Sources
crossref openalex

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