Skill Investment, Farm Size Distribution and Agricultural Productivity

Wenbiao Cai

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This paper develops a general equilibrium model to quantitatively explain high labor share, low productivity and small farm size in agriculture in low income countries. The model features individual heterogeneity in skill that is augmentable over time and endogenous occupation choice. Calibrated to the U.S, the model can reproduce bulk of the observed variations in agriculture employment, agriculture output per worker and mean farm size across countries in the sample. In addition, the model generates endogenous farm size distributions that closely resemble the empirical counterpart for a large set of countries. Counterfactual exercises show TFP to be the main source of productivity differences.

Keywords: Income differences; agricultural productivity; Skill investment; farm size distribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O11 O13 O14 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-10-21
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-dge, nep-eff and nep-lab
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https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/27623/1/MPRA_paper_27623.pdf revised version (application/pdf)
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