Agriculture and economic development in Germany, 1870–1939

Broadberry’s estimates of total factor productivity (TFP) by sector in Britain and Germany provide the context for this discussion of the performance of German agriculture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The figures raise some interesting questions. Between 1871 and 1911 German agricultural TFP converges on the British figure, rising from an index of 55.7 (Great Britain = 100) to 67.3. But after 1913 the gap widens. In 1925 German agricultural TFP is 53.8 per cent of the British level. By 1938 it is still only 59.0 per cent. The position attained in 1911 is not recovered in the inter-war period (Broadberry 1997).