Asian agricultural productivity and convergence

This paper measures agricultural total factor productivity (TFP), for eight een Asian countries, from 1965 to 1996. TFP is measured by calculating the Malmquist index with respect to the sequential frontier, which is appropria te when the cross section is relatively small. The results show that half t he countries have experienced negative productivity growth, due to losses i n technical efficiency combined with stagnation in technological progress. Both cross-section and time series tests show that there is no evidence of convergence in agricultural productivity for these countries. The less prod uctive countries are falling further behind, rather than catching lip. Fina lly, comparisons vith Africa show that although Asia has had faster TFP gro wth than Africa, three of the five African regions (East, Central and South ern) have grown faster than any of the Asian regions.