Productivity growth and technology capital in the global agricultural economy.

The chapters of this volume have presented some of the latest and most comprehensive assessments of productivity growth for agriculture in various countries and regions of the world. As reviewed in the introduction to this volume, the global story is a mixed one. Industrialized countries have generally sustained relatively strong rates of total factor productivity (TFP) over the past several decades, although Australia and South Africa show signs of productivity stagnation. In transition countries there has been a fairly robust productivity recovery after more than a decade of economic reforms that forced a sharp contraction on the agricultural sectors of these countries. But just as the reform process has been uneven across these countries, so has the pace of their agricultural recovery. Among developing countries, several, most notably Brazil and China, have achieved remarkable productivity gains over the past several decades. Others, especially those in sub-Saharan Africa, continue to lag far behind the kind of productivity growth most other countries are achieving.