Standard measures of productivity display enormous dispersion across farms in Africa. Crop yields and input intensities appear to vary greatly, seemingly in conflict with a model of efficient allocation across farms. In this paper, we present a theoretical framework for distinguishing between measurement error, unobserved heterogeneity, and potential misallocation. Using rich panel data from farms in Tanzania and Uganda, we estimate our model using a flexible specification in which we allow for several kinds of measurement error and heterogeneity. We find that measurement error and heterogeneity together account for a large fraction of the dispersion in measured productivity.

中文翻译：

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异质性、测量误差和错误分配：来自非洲农业的证据

生产力的标准衡量标准显示非洲农场之间存在巨大差异。作物产量和投入强度似乎差异很大，似乎与跨农场的有效分配模型相冲突。在本文中，我们提出了一个理论框架来区分测量误差、未观察到的异质性和潜在的分配不当。使用来自坦桑尼亚和乌干达农场的丰富面板数据，我们使用灵活的规范估计我们的模型，其中我们允许多种测量误差和异质性。我们发现测量误差和异质性共同占了测量生产率离散的很大一部分。