New Evidence on Sectoral Labor Productivity: Implications for Industrialization and Development
Relatively little is known about productivity differences between rich and poor countries at the sectoral level. We leverage recent data releases by the Groningen Growth and Development Centre to build a new dataset of comparable labor productivity levels in agriculture and manufacturing for 64 mostly poor countries during 1990-2018. We find two key results: (i) cross-country productivity gaps are larger in manufacturing than in the aggregate and (ii) there is no tendency for manufacturing productivity to converge. Our results challenge the notion that expanding manufacturing employment in low income countries is essential for closing aggregate productivity gaps. While our data do not indicate a special role for manufacturing employment in the development process, we do find a strong correlation between productivity growth in manufacturing and aggregate productivity growth.
Date: 9 May 2023, 13:15 (Tuesday, 3rd week, Trinity 2023)
Venue: Manor Road Building, Manor Road OX1 3UQ
Venue Details: Seminar Room A or join online: https://zoom.us/j/99960790792?pwd=L01NVnBQcGlqMVdQMHBiWDN3YmFMZz09
Speaker: Akos Valentinyi (The University of Manchester)
Organising department: Department of Economics
Part of: Seminar in Macroeconomics
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Members of the University only
Editors: Emma Heritage, Daria Ihnatenko