Land Productivity and Plot Size : Is Measurement Error Driving the Inverse Relationship?

This paper revisits the decades-old puzzle of the inverse plot-size productivity relationship (IR), which states that land productivity decreases as plot size increases. While existing studies define land productivity or yields as self-reported production divided by plot size, we consider an alterna...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Desiere, Sam, Jolliffe, Dean
Format:	Journal Article
Published:	Elsevier 2017
Subjects:	CROP CUTTING SMALL-SCALE FARMING MEASUREMENT ERROR INVERSE SCALE-PRODUCTIVITY RELATIONSHIP PLOT SIZE
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/28786

id	okr-10986-28786
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-287862021-05-25T10:54:40Z Land Productivity and Plot Size : Is Measurement Error Driving the Inverse Relationship? Desiere, Sam Jolliffe, Dean CROP CUTTING SMALL-SCALE FARMING MEASUREMENT ERROR INVERSE SCALE-PRODUCTIVITY RELATIONSHIP PLOT SIZE This paper revisits the decades-old puzzle of the inverse plot-size productivity relationship (IR), which states that land productivity decreases as plot size increases. While existing studies define land productivity or yields as self-reported production divided by plot size, we consider an alternative approach to estimating yields based on crop cuts. The crop-cut method entails measuring and harvesting randomly selected subplots by trained technicians, and is recommended by the Food and Agricultural Organization for the accurate measurement of crop production. Using data of rural Ethiopia, our analysis indicates that the IR is strong when based on self-reported production, but disappears when based on crop-cut estimates. Our inference from these findings is that the IR is an artifact of systematic over-reporting of production by farmers on small plots, and under-reporting on larger plots. We also discuss how rejecting the inverse plot-size productivity relationship has significant implications for the inverse farm-size productivity relationship. 2017-11-13T16:04:26Z 2017-11-13T16:04:26Z 2018-01 Journal Article Journal of Development Economics 0304-3878 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/28786 CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Elsevier Publications & Research :: Journal Article Publications & Research Africa Ethiopia
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
topic	CROP CUTTING SMALL-SCALE FARMING MEASUREMENT ERROR INVERSE SCALE-PRODUCTIVITY RELATIONSHIP PLOT SIZE
spellingShingle	CROP CUTTING SMALL-SCALE FARMING MEASUREMENT ERROR INVERSE SCALE-PRODUCTIVITY RELATIONSHIP PLOT SIZE Desiere, Sam Jolliffe, Dean Land Productivity and Plot Size : Is Measurement Error Driving the Inverse Relationship?
geographic_facet	Africa Ethiopia
description	This paper revisits the decades-old puzzle of the inverse plot-size productivity relationship (IR), which states that land productivity decreases as plot size increases. While existing studies define land productivity or yields as self-reported production divided by plot size, we consider an alternative approach to estimating yields based on crop cuts. The crop-cut method entails measuring and harvesting randomly selected subplots by trained technicians, and is recommended by the Food and Agricultural Organization for the accurate measurement of crop production. Using data of rural Ethiopia, our analysis indicates that the IR is strong when based on self-reported production, but disappears when based on crop-cut estimates. Our inference from these findings is that the IR is an artifact of systematic over-reporting of production by farmers on small plots, and under-reporting on larger plots. We also discuss how rejecting the inverse plot-size productivity relationship has significant implications for the inverse farm-size productivity relationship.
format	Journal Article
author	Desiere, Sam Jolliffe, Dean
author_facet	Desiere, Sam Jolliffe, Dean
author_sort	Desiere, Sam
title	Land Productivity and Plot Size : Is Measurement Error Driving the Inverse Relationship?
title_short	Land Productivity and Plot Size : Is Measurement Error Driving the Inverse Relationship?
title_full	Land Productivity and Plot Size : Is Measurement Error Driving the Inverse Relationship?
title_fullStr	Land Productivity and Plot Size : Is Measurement Error Driving the Inverse Relationship?
title_full_unstemmed	Land Productivity and Plot Size : Is Measurement Error Driving the Inverse Relationship?
title_sort	land productivity and plot size : is measurement error driving the inverse relationship?
publisher	Elsevier
publishDate	2017
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/28786
_version_	1764467847651655680

Land Productivity and Plot Size : Is Measurement Error Driving the Inverse Relationship?

Similar Items