Agricultural Productivity Differences across Countries

Recent studies argue that cross-country labor productivity differences are much larger in agriculture than in the aggregate. We reexamine the agricultural productivity data underlying this conclusion using new evidence from disaggregate sources. We find that for the world's staple grains—maize, rice, and wheat—cross-country differences in the quantity of grain produced per worker are enormous according to both micro- and macrosources. Our findings validate the idea that understanding agricultural productivity is at the heart of understanding world income inequality.