This paper investigates whether climatic adjusted total factor productivity (CATFP) in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is converging, converging to different steady states or exhibit absolute convergence, that is the process does not require (government) interventions to reach its equilibrium path. We use data from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit and from the Food and Agriculture Organization for 28 LAC countries over a 54‐year period (1961–2014) to estimate random parameters stochastic production frontier models to calculate CATFP and then use cross‐sectional regressions and an error correction model to analyse CATFP convergence across countries in the region. The results show that technological progress is the main driver of CATFP growth in the region and there is no absolute convergence, that is CATFP gaps across countries will not decrease over time and least performing countries will not grow faster than better performing ones without targeted policies. However, CATFP across LAC exhibits conditional convergence towards different steady states. Technological progress plays a critical role in raising the steady state level of CATFP with an overall average of 2.22 per cent per annum.

中文翻译：

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拉丁美洲和加勒比地区的农业生产率增长：气候影响，追赶和趋同分析*

本文研究了拉丁美洲和加勒比（LAC）的气候调整全要素生产率（CATFP）是收敛，收敛于不同的稳态还是呈现出绝对收敛，即该过程不需要（政府）干预即可达到其平衡路径。我们使用东英吉利大学气候研究部门和粮食及农业组织来自54个LAC国家（1961-2014年）的数据，在54年间（1961-2014年）估算随机参数随机生产前沿模型来计算CATFP，然后使用交叉区域回归和误差校正模型，以分析该地区各国之间的CATFP趋同。结果表明，技术进步是该地区CATFP增长的主要驱动力，并且没有绝对趋同，这就是说，跨国家的CATFP差距不会随着时间的流逝而缩小，表现最差的国家不会比没有目标政策的表现更好的国家增长更快。但是，跨LAC的CATFP对不同的稳态表现出条件收敛。技术进步在提高CATFP的稳态水平方面发挥着至关重要的作用，总体上平均每年为2.22％。