Measures of Fixed Capital in Agriculture

Capital is a fundamental component of agricultural production, and the accumulation of capital is key to growth in agriculture and the process of development. Unfortunately, cross-country data sets on agricultural fixed capital are rare. Using a common methodology that allows comparisons across countries, as well as over time, we introduce a data series on fixed capital in agriculture, based on national accounts data. The fixed capital measure differs remarkably from the FAO data series on tractors which has been widely utilized as a proxy for agricultural fixed capital. We construct comparable measures of capital in livestock and treestock. We examine the evolution of the capital stocks from 1970 to 2000, paying particular attention to the changing composition of agricultural capital, as well as differences in the accumulation of capital for highincome and middle- and lower-income countries. Using our capital measures in agricultural productivity analyses, the data yield estimated input elasticities substantially different from those found previously in the literature. We show explicitly that this is due to the improved data set on agricultural capital stocks, as well as the methodology used in the study