The Agricultural Productivity Gap

Douglas Gollin (), David Lagakos and Michael Waugh

No 19628, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: According to national accounts data, value added per worker is much higher in the non-agricultural sector than in agriculture in the typical country, and particularly so in developing countries. Taken at face value, this "agricultural productivity gap" suggests that labor is greatly misallocated across sectors. In this paper, we draw on new micro evidence to ask to what extent the gap is still present when better measures of sector labor inputs and value added are taken into consideration. We find that even after considering sector differences in hours worked and human capital per worker, as well as alternative measures of sector output constructed from household survey data, a puzzlingly large gap remains.

JEL-codes: E01 E24 J61 O11 O13 O15 O18 O41 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-eff and nep-mac
Note: EFG
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (66)

Published as Douglas Gollin & David Lagakos & Michael E. Waugh, 2014. "The Agricultural Productivity Gap," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 129(2), pages 939-993.

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Journal Article: The Agricultural Productivity Gap (2014)
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