Technological Backwardness in Agriculture:Is it Due to Lack of R&D, Human Capital,and Openness to International Trade?

摘要

This paper investigates the relationship between the agricultural technological level and R&D expenditures human capital, and openness to international trade using cross-country information for a sample of 104 countries and various subsamples over the period 1961-91.The unobservable technological level is modeled as a dynamic process in the context of a general translog production function. The results suggest that the technological gap between developed and less developed countries in agriculture increased considerably over this period of time. Overall, the technological levels are directly related to R&D expenditures, human capital, and openness, although this relationship is not robust across different groups of countries.