Completed There is a great deal of verbal argument that poor agricultural policies have hindered agricultural growth in Africa but, there is little empirical work.This project will be able to use about 20 years of data for around 30 countries to estimate the effects of agricultural price policy, infrastructure investments, R&D extension, and some other elements of policy - hopefully credit will be included. The project aimed to measure agricultural productivity and the effects of factors such as price policy, infrastructure investments, research and development extension, and other policy demands, across a sample of African countries. Case studies will also be analysed. The policy problems which had the most impact on agricultural efficiency will be identified and quantified with the results being disseminated to those responsible for policy reform.The wider objective of the project is to identify the policy problems which have been particularly important in Africa and thereby encourage effective agricultural policy reform.The immediate objectives are:To measure agricultural productivity across a sample of countries and over timecalculate total factor productivity indices estimating frontier production functions to measure efficiency.To explain differences in efficiency through refinement of policy variables indicating and quantifying those that have most impact.To analyse case studies in light of estimated results. Policy and infrastructure variables do matter as well as the variables that are expected to lead to long run growth. Thus, the concerns of the New Growth theory, which had been debated in the context of agricultural growth, can be empirically supported, for the case of SSA. These results were probably blindingly obvious to those who have worked in Africa, which goes to show how hard it can be to produce econometric evidence of simple, glaring facts. The Malmquist MFP indices both provide measurement information and improve the econometric estimates, by incorporating intra-country differences, so that less constraints are imposed. A paper on the research to be presented at the annual conference of the Agricultural Economic Society (April 1993).A discussion paper to be published by University of Reading (April 1993).Find report to DFID of the research and a database of the results. (August 1993). Two presented papers, detailed under dissemination.This study presents and compares Malmquist multi-factor productivity (MFP) indices for 22 countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SS). The indices are multilateral, allowing cross-sectional comparison of productivity as well as covering the time series for 1971-1986. The MFP indices are the ratio of outputs to traditional inputs. The study relates to the New Growth theory in that changes in MFP are explained by modern inputs, infrastructure variables, shift variables (R&D and education), policy, and exogenous factors such as disasters and the weather. All the input categories are found to contribute significantly to output and productivity growth.