Income differences across countries primarily reflect differences in total factor productivity (TFP). More disaggregated data show that the TFP gap between rich and poor countries varies systematically across industrial sectors of the economy: Poor countries are particularly unproductive in tradable and investment goods sectors. In this paper, we develop a quantitatively-oriented framework to explain such cross-country patterns in aggregate and sectoral TFP. We start by documenting that an important distinction between sectors is their average establishment size. For example, establishments in tradable and investment goods sectors operate at much larger scales than those in the non-tradable sector. In our model, sectors with larger scales of operation have more financing needs, and are hence disproportionately affected by financial frictions. Our quantitative exercises show that financial frictions account for a substantial part of the observed cross-country patterns in TFP, both at the aggregate and at the sectoral level. Our model also has novel implications for the impact of financial frictions on the relative scale between the tradable and the non-tradable sectors, which are shown to be consistent with the data.

Two traditional explanations for structural changes are sector-biased technological progress and non-homothetic preferences. This paper integrates both into an otherwise standard growth model and quantitatively evaluates them vis-a-vis time series. The exercise identi…es a set of puzzles for standard theories: (i) the model cannot account for the steep decline in manufacturing and rise in services in the later data; (ii) the standard model requires implausibly low elasticity of substitution across goods to match the consumption and output data; and (iii) the behavior of consumption and output shares di¤ers signi…cantly from that of employment shares. We argue that models that incorporate home production, sector-speci…c factor distortions, and di¤erences across sectors in the accumulation of human capital are promising avenues to amend the standard models.UCLA,

Bob Hall, Bob Lucas, and Ivan Werning as well as seminar participants at various places. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Income differences across countries primarily reflect differences in total factor productivity (TFP). More disaggregate data suggest that the TFP gap between rich and poor countries varies systematically across industrial sectors of the economy. For example, less developed countries seem particularly unproductive in manufacturing. We develop a quantitative framework to explain the relationship between aggregate/sectorlevel TFP and financial development across countries. Financial frictions distort the allocation of capital and talent across production units, adversely affecting measured productivity. In our model, sectors with larger scales of operation (e.g., manufacturing) have more financing needs, and are hence disproportionately vulnerable to financial frictions. Our quantitative analysis shows that financial frictions account for a substantial part of the observed cross-country differences in output per worker, aggregate TFP, sector-level relative productivity, and capital to output ratios.

This paper analyzes the role of specialized high-skilled labor in the disproportionate growth of the service sector. Empirically, the importance of skill-intensive services has risen during a period of increasing relative wages and quantities of high-skilled labor. We develop a theory in which demand shifts toward more skill-intensive output as productivity rises, increasing the importance of market services relative to home production. Consistent with the data, the theory predicts a rising level of skill, skill premium, and relative price of services that is linked to this skill premium. (JEL J24, L80, L90)