The Missing Food Problem: Trade, Agriculture, and International Productivity Differences

Trevor Tombe

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 2015, vol. 7, issue 3, 226-58

Abstract: Agriculture in poor countries has low productivity, high employment, and negligible trade flows relative to other sectors. These facts motivate a multisector, open-economy view of international productivity differences. With a quantitative multicountry model featuring nonhomothetic preferences, multiple interrelated sectors, distorted labor markets, and costly trade, I find: trade amplifies the negative effect of labor market distortions; trade costs—large for poor countries, especially in agriculture—significantly contribute to international productivity differences; and explicitly modeling agriculture reveals additional channels through which poor countries may gain from trade. (JEL F41, J24, J43, O13, O19, Q11, Q17)

JEL-codes: F41 J24 J43 O13 O19 Q11 Q17 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
Note: DOI: 10.1257/mac.20130108
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (68)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/mac.20130108 (application/pdf)
http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/mac/ds/0703/2013-0108_ds.zip (application/zip)
http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/mac/data/0703/2013-0108_data.zip (application/zip)
http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/mac/app/0703/2013-0108_app.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

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:aea:aejmac:v:7:y:2015:i:3:p:226-58

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics is currently edited by Simon Gilchrist

More articles in American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().