Are small farms really more productive than large farms?

Fernando Aragón, Diego Restuccia and Juan Pablo Rud
Additional contact information
Fernando Aragón: Simon Fraser University
Juan Pablo Rud: Royal Holloway, University of London/IFS

No 44, Working Papers from Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE)

Abstract: This paper shows that the study of the farm size-productivity relationship hinges on the choice of productivity measure. Our main insight is that using yields, a partial measure of productivity commonly used in the literature, may not be informative. This occurs because, in addition to total factor productivity, yields pick up input markets distortions and deviations from constant returns to scale. We examine the empirical relevance of this insight using detailed microdata from Uganda. We find an inverse relationship between yields and farm size. We show the relationship turns positive when accounting for market distortions and returns to scale; or when using a farm- specific component of total factor productivity.

Keywords: Farm; size; productivity; yields; land; markets; distortions; agriculture; policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O12 O13 Q12 Q15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 61 pages
Date: 2021-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-dev
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Don4EOfYTU6QJw6V_pEPPq5R80c5Kw4E/view (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Are small farms really more productive than large farms? (2022)
Working Paper: Are small farms really more productive than large farms? (2021)
Working Paper: Are small farms really more productive than large farms? (2021)
Working Paper: Are small farms really more productive than large farms? (2021)
Working Paper: Are small farms really more productive than large farms? (2020)
Working Paper: Are Small Farms Really more Productive than Large Farms? (2019)
Working Paper: Are Small Farms Really more Productive than Large Farms? (2019)
Working Paper: Are small farms really more productive than large farms? (2019)
Working Paper: Are Small Farms Really more Productive than Large Farms? (2019)
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