We examine aggregate productivity differences across nations using cross-country firm-level data and a quantitative model of production heterogeneity with distortions featuring operation decisions (selection) and productivity-enhancing investments (technology). Empirically, less developed...

The expansion in farm size is an important contributor to agricultural productivity in developed countries, but the reallocation process is hindered in less developed economies. How do distortions to factor reallocation affect farm dynamics and agricultural productivity? We develop a model of...

This paper provides new empirical insights on the joint distribution of consumption, income, and wealth in three of the poorest countries in the world - Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda - all located in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The first finding is that while income inequality is similar to that of...

We study the determinants of differences in farm-size across countries and their impact on agricultural and aggregate productivity using a quantitative sectoral model featuring a distribution of farms. Measured aggregate factors (capital, land, economy-wide productivity) account for ? of the...

Standard growth models require large differences in barriers to capital accumulation to reproduce the observed disparities in the wealth of nations. I introduce technology adoption and schooling decisions into a standard growth model and show that the required differences in barriers implied by...

Consider the following facts. In 1950, the richest countries attained an average of 8 years of schooling whereas the poorest countries 1.3 years, a large 6-fold difference. By 2005, the difference in schooling declined to 2-fold because schooling increased faster in poor than in rich countries....

  <span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'CMR12';">By international standards, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in Latin America is low: around one fourth of that of the United States. Moreover, in the last five decades, Latin America has failed to catch-up in wealth to the level of the United States while other countries at similar...</span>

We formulate a version of the growth model in which production is carried out by heterogeneous plants and calibrate it to US data. In the context of this model we argue that differences in the allocation of resources across heterogeneous plants may be an important factor in accounting for...