This is a prepublication version of J.M. Beddow, T.M. Hurley, P.G. Pardey, and J.M. Alston’s “Food Security: Yield Gap” chapter in N. Van Alfen, editor-in-chief, Encyclopedia of Agriculture and Food Systems, Vol. 3, San Diego: Elsevier, 2014, pp. 352-365.

Some studies have reported a slowdown in U.S. farm productivity growth, but the prevalent view among economists is to reject or downplay the slowdown hypothesis, implying that the rates of productivity growth experienced over the past half century can be projected forward. We set out to resolve...

Over the past 50 years and longer, the supply of food commodities has grown faster than the effective market demand, in spite of increasing population and per capita incomes. Consequently, the real (deflated) prices of food commodities have steadily trended down. The past increases in...

This is a substantially revised version of “Capital Use Intensity and Productivity Biases.” Andersen, Matt A.; Alston, Julian M.; Pardey, Philip G., St. Paul, MN: University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics; University of Minnesota, International Science and Technology Practice...

"This paper annotates and cites literature that is relevant to...agricultural productivity analysis...[includes] agricultural productivity studies for all countries dating back to World War II."