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...

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...

Lack of comprehensive sectoral productivity data across a large set of countries has turned researchers to structural analysis using detailed international price data to infer cross country productivity at the sector level. Because the relative price of services is higher in rich than in poor...