Barriers to Capital Accumulation and Aggregate Total Factor Productivity*
构建了一个包含传统和现代两种技术的增长模型，说明资本积累障碍如何影响技术选择进而降低全要素生产率，并用农业份额数据验证了模型预测。
I develop a growth model where a single good can be produced with a traditional and a modern technology. The traditional technology features low total factor productivity (TFP) and a low share of reproducible capital. In this framework, barriers to capital accumulation affect technology use and therefore aggregate TFP. The theory thus connects recent models of factor accumulation and of TFP. The model is calibrated by interpreting traditional production as agriculture and nonreproducible capital as land. The theory implies that barriers are associated with large agricultural shares, as supported by cross‐country and time‐series evidence. The required TFP differences needed in the model to account for a given income disparity are reduced by 1/2 relative to the standard model that abstracts from technology choice.