suitability in the examination of the effect of land productivity on comparative economic development. The analysis demonstrates … Suitability Index dominates the conventional measure in capturing the effect of land productivity on pre-colonial population …

that changes affecting agriculture have large aggregate effects. Thus, it seems reasonable that agricultural productivity …. In fact, agriculture in most developing countries has very low productivity relative to the rest of the economy …. Expanding a low-productivity sector might not be unambiguously good for growth. Moreover, there are issues of reverse causation …