WDR Background Paper on Asset Inequality and Agricultural Productivity Asset Inequality and Agricultural Growth: How are patterns of asset inequality established and reproduced?

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between distributions of asset inequality, how these distributions are created and maintained, and agricultural growth. We intend to investigate what policies and institutions tend to promote equally shared growth. The motivating question that guides our study is: How does differential access to productive assets in the agricultural sector, at various levels (regional, community and household), effect inequalities in agricultural outcomes in terms of productivity and poverty? The dominant discourse on agricultural productivity and distribution has been largely technocratic, focusing on input-output relationships, defined and measured with a yardstick specific to the discipline of economics. We review certain strands of this literature in depth. A less well-known strand of literature emphasises the social and political constructions and reproductions of a variety of inequalities. While this is a relatively small literature we use it to broaden our understanding of the processes and institutions that link inequality and productivity. Furthermore, we use Ethiopian agriculture as a case study to highlight the persistent nature of inequality as causally related to historical choices and path dependency. Rather than unidirectional causalities, what we observe is a complex system whereby inequality affects growth which in turn reinforces processes that exacerbate an