The Missing Food Problem: Trade, Agriculture, and International Productivity Differences

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Tombe, Trevor
• 署名单位: University of Calgary
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MACROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7707
• DOI: 10.1257/mac.20130108
• 发表日期: 2015
• 页码: 226-258
• 关键词: country income differences; COSTS; gravity

摘要

Agriculture in poor countries has low productivity, high employment, and negligible trade flows relative to other sectors. These facts motivate a multisector, open-economy view of international productivity differences. With a quantitative multicountry model featuring nonhomothetic preferences, multiple interrelated sectors, distorted labor markets, and costly trade, I find: trade amplifies the negative effect of labor market distortions; trade costs-large for poor countries, especially in agriculture-significantly contribute to international productivity differences; and explicitly modeling agriculture reveals additional channels through which poor countries may gain from trade. (JEL F41, J24, J43, O13, O19, Q11, Q17)