No mangoes in the tundra: Spatial heterogeneity in agricultural productivity analysis

• Published in: Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics
• Main Authors: Eberhardt, Markus, Teal, Francis
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Wiley 2013
• Subjects: Tundra
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0084.2012.00720.x; https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3182497

In line with the wider macro productivity literature existing studies of agricultural production largely neglect technology heterogeneity, variable time-series properties and the potential for heterogeneous but correlated total factor productivity (TFP) across countries. Our empirical approach accommodates these difficulties and seeks to model the nature of the cross-section dependence in a sample of 128 countries (1961-2002). Our results suggest that agro-climatic environment drives similarity in TFP evolution across countries with heterogeneous production technology. This provides a possible explanation for the failure of technology transfer from advanced countries of the temperate 'North' to arid and/or equatorial developing countries of the 'South'. © 2012 The Department of Economics, University of Oxford and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.