This paper assesses the impact of pollution on worker productivity by relating exogenous daily variations in ozone with productivity of agricultural workers as recorded under piece rate contracts. We find robust evidence that ozone levels well below federal air quality standards have a...

Cross-country labor productivity differences are larger in agriculture than in non-agriculture. We propose a new explanation for these patterns in which the self-selection of heterogeneous workers determines sector productivity. We formalize our theory in a general-equilibrium Roy model in which...

We study the determinants of differences in farm-size across countries and their impact on agricultural and aggregate productivity using a quantitative sectoral model featuring a distribution of farms. Measured aggregate factors (capital, land, economy-wide productivity) account for ? of the...

Summary German (PDF) Summary French (PDF) Summary Serbian (PDF) This report has also been published at the EU’s website http //ec.europa.eu Summary In the period after the political changes in the year 2000, GDP growth in Serbia was rather rapid and compares favourably with other transition...

Promotion of entrepreneurial skills among the population is often considered as an adequate policy to enhance job creation and economic growth. However, neither the definition of entrepreneurial skills, nor the costs and benefits of such a policy are clear. Our aim is to check whether the...

The paper argues that much of the farm-nonfarm labor mobility in rural Bangladesh is in nature an intergenerational occupational choice-induced change rather than a sectoral shift within the current generation. Bangladesh has a large share of youth (aged 15-29 years) in the labor force, and it...

According to standard economic theory, households should equate the marginal revenue product of an input across activities within the household. Using data on agricultural plots and non-farm enterprises in Malawi, we test whether the marginal revenue product of labor (MRPL) is equal across...

Different management configurations have distinct performance effects. In particular, this is examined for vine-growing estates in Germany. For several reasons managers will prefer higher quality over quantity, thus producing better wines at higher prices in lower volume than self-managing...

Lagging labor reallocations outside agriculture amid sustained low agricultural productivity have been a key feature in the Philippines over the past 15 years. An analysis of the labor adjustments in and out of agriculture shows that a variety of factors have influenced this process. We find...