Reconsidering Conventional Explanations of the Inverse Productivity-Size Relationship

Christopher Barrett, Marc Bellemare and Janet Y. Hou

No 10-22, Working Papers from Duke University, Department of Economics

Abstract: The inverse productivity-size relationship is one of the oldest puzzles in development economics. Two conventional explanations for the inverse relationship have emerged in the literature: (i) factor market imperfections that cause cross-sectional variation in household-specific shadow prices and thereby induce variation in input application rates; and (ii) the omission of soil quality measurements that are inversely correlated with farm or plot size but positively associated with yields. This study uniquely employs precise soil quality measurements at the plot level with multiple plots per household so as to allow testing of both conventional explanations simultaneously. Our empirical results show that, in these data, only a small portion of the inverse productivity-size relationship is explained by market imperfections and none of it seems attributable to the omission of soil quality measurements.

Keywords: Inverse Relationship; Productivity; Market Failures; Soil Characteristics; Sub-Saharan Africa; Madagascar (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D24 O12 O13 Q12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38
Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (185)

Downloads: (external link)
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID14 ... ctid=1275353&mirid=1 main text

Related works:
Journal Article: Reconsidering Conventional Explanations of the Inverse Productivity-Size Relationship (2010)
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:duk:dukeec:10-22

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Duke University, Department of Economics Department of Economics Duke University 213 Social Sciences Building Box 90097 Durham, NC 27708-0097.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Department of Economics Webmaster ().