We investigate the role of sectoral differences in labor productivity and the process of structural transformation (the secular reallocation of labor across sectors) in accounting for the time path of aggregate productivity across countries. Using a simple model of the structural transformation...

Using detailed household-farm level data from Malawi, we measure real farm total factor productivity (TFP) controlling for a wide array of factor inputs, land quality, and transitory shocks. The distribution of farm TFP has substantial dispersion but factor inputs are roughly evenly spread among...

Consider the following facts. In 1950 the richest ten-percent of countries attained an average of 8.1 years of schooling whereas the poorest ten-percent of countries attained 1.3 years, a 6-fold difference. By 2005, the difference in schooling declined to 2-fold. The fact is that schooling has...

Consider the following facts. In 1950 the richest ten-percent of countries attained an average of 8 years of schooling whereas the poorest ten-percent of countries attained 1.3 years, a 6-fold difference. By 2005, the difference in schooling declined to 2-fold. The fact is that schooling has...

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....

Consider the following facts. In 1950 the richest ten-percent of countries attained an average of 8.1 years of schooling whereas the poorest ten-percent of countries attained 1.3 years, a 6-fold difference. By 2005, the difference in schooling declined to 2-fold. The fact is that schooling has...

The relative price of services rises with development. A standard interpretation of this fact is that cross-country productivity differences are larger in manufacturing than in services. The service sector comprises heterogeneous categories. We document that the behavior of relative prices is...

The large differences in income per capita across countries are mostly accounted for by differences in total factor productivity (TFP). What explains these differences in TFP across countries? Evidence suggests that the (mis)allocation of factors of production across heterogenous production...

The large differences in income per capita across countries are mostly explained by differences in total factor productivity (TFP). This article summarizes the evidence on the importance of resource allocation across productive units in explaining the observed differences in TFP across countries.

We construct a new dataset using census, survey, and registry data from hundreds of sources to document a clear positive relationship between aggregate productivity and average establishment size for manufacturing establishments across 124 countries. We rationalize this relationship using a...