ABSTRACT ———————————————————————————————————— According to national accounts data for developing countries, value added per worker is on average four times higher in the non-agriculture sector than in agriculture. Taken at face value this “agricultural productivity gap ” suggests that labor is greatly misallocated across sectors in the developing world. 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, and alternative measures of sector income constructed from household survey data, a puzzlingly large gap remains.

Abstract There are substantial learning gaps across countries on standardized international assessments. In this paper, I use unique child-level panel data from Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam with identical tests administered across these countries to children at 5, 8, 12 and 15 years of age to ask at what ages do gaps between different populations emerge, how they increase or decline over time, and what the proximate determinants of this divergence are.

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In this paper, I present comparable measures of equipment capital and structures capital stocks for 119 countries. Cross-country variation in equipment capital-output ratio is over twice the variation in structures capital and aggregate physical capital. The dispersion in equipment capital has also increased overtime. Using development accounting that incorporates equipment and structures capital, I offer evidence relevant to the debate on the importance of productivity versus factors in accounting for income differences. The new measures of heterogeneous capital reduce the burden on TFP by up to five percent.

Bank Conference on Development Economics. Portions of this paper were written while Gollin was on leave at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Financial support from the International Growth Centre is gratefully appreciated. All potential errors are our own. This version supersedes an earlier version with the title “The Agricultural Productivity Gap in Developing Countries”. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.