Crop Selection and International Differences in Aggregate Agricultural Productivity

Jorge Alvarez and Claudia Berg

No 2019/179, IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: A large share of cross-country differences in productivity is explained by differences in agricultural productivity. Using a combination of sub-national agricultural statistics and geospatial datasets on crop-specific potential yields, we study the main drivers of this variation from a macroeconomic perspective. We find that differences in geographically-induced crop-specific comparative advantages can explain a substantial share of the variation in yields across the world. Data reveal substantial gaps between potential and observed yields in most countries. When decomposing these within country gaps, we find that crop selection gaps are on average larger than those induced by input usage alone. The results highlight the importance of understanding the interaction of geography and crop selection drivers in assessing aggregate agricultural productivity differences.

Keywords: WP; potential yield; crop selection; Productivity; Agriculture; Geography; crop selection gap; fertilizer use; productivity gap; yield potential; observed yield; yield variation; Agricultural sector; Agroindustries; Income; Agricultural commodities; Asia and Pacific; Sub-Saharan Africa; East Asia; North Africa; Central Asia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35
Date: 2019-08-16
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-dev and nep-eff
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=47118 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2019/179

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/pubs/ord_info.htm

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Akshay Modi ().