Productivity and Economic Growth in Tunisian Agriculture: An Empirical Evidence

This paper analyse the patterns of productivity and economic growth in the Tunisian agriculture during the 1961-2000. Results indicated that agriculture output growth where high in both the 1961-1970 and the 1971-1980 periods but decreased during the 1991-2000 period. Average output growth exceeded 6% during the 1981-1990 period, the average output growth during 1991-2000 had fallen to 4%. Over the whole period, capital was the most important contributor to output growth and labour is considered as the least significant contributor to economic growth. Total factor productivity contribution to output growth decreased from 4.64% in 1961-1970 to 2.86% in 1971-1980. In contrast, this contribution increased in 1981-1990 to close the 4.38%. In the last period, namely 1991-2000, TFP decreased. On average, productivity growth increased by less that 3.6% per year. One major source of the low productivity might be the low level of intermediate input use.