Tyler Shipper presented The Size Distribution of Farms and International Productivity Differences (AER 2014) by Tasso Adamopoulos and Diego Restucc. The authors present a model of a two sector economy that helps explain why aggregate variables at the country level such as capital and productivity have limited explanatory power for farm size. Including country specific policies enhances the explanatory power from 1/4 of total variation to 1/2. The abstract and a link to the paper are below.
Abstract: We study the determinants of di fferences in farm-size across countries and their impact on agricultural and aggregate productivity using a quantitative sectoral model featuring a distribution of farms. Measured aggregate factors (capital, land, economy-wide productivity) account for ¼ of the observed differences in farm size and productivity. Policies and institutions that misallocate resources across farms have the potential to account for the remaining diff erences. Exploiting within-country variation in crop-specifi c price distortions and their correlation with farm size, we construct a cross-country measure of farm-size distortions which together with aggregate factors accounts for ½ of the cross-country diff erences in size and productivity.
The paper can be found here.