Technical Efficiency of Maize Production in Fluoride Affected Locales, Tamil Nadu: A Stochastic Frontier Approach

To estimate the technical efficiency of maize production among fluoride affected and non affected locales of Tamil Nadu. A multi-stage sampling method involving a combination of purposive and random sampling procedures was employed in drawing up the samples for collecting primary data. The sample size is about 120. Stochastic frontier production function is used to estimate technical efficiency of maize. The result of stochastic frontier production function indicated that FYM, Potassium, machine power, irrigation and management index have significant influence on yield of maize in less fluoride affected locale, while, seed rate, nitrogen, phosphorous, machine power and irrigation are significantly influence the yield of maize in moderately fluoride affected locale, in case of highly fluoride affected locale, seed rate, nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium and irrigation are significantly influencing the yield of maize, while, nitrogen, potassium, irrigation and management index are significantly influences the yield of maize in non affected locale. The study suggests that awareness of fluoride contamination and averting measures must be disseminated to the farmers

TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY IN RUSSIAN AGRICULTURE

For decades, Russian agriculture had had little technological progress and virtually no foreign investment, which resulted in a stable production possibilities frontier and made the sector ideally suited to production function analysis. The production function estimations reported in Chapters 10-13 add to a series of previous studies of the input/output relationship in Russian agriculture (e.g., Clayton, 1980, 1984; Gray, 1981; Johnson and Brooks, 1983), which generally followed the same methodology. In the late 1970s and the 1980s, however, the average response production functions gave way in the economics literature to more sophisticated production analysis techniques that measured not only productivity but technical efficiency as well (Aigner, et al., 1977; Bauer, 1990). Some of the major methodological advances in applying technical efficiency analysis to individual firms were made by a joint Russian-American team in Moscow in the early 1980s (Jondrow, et al., 1982; Danlin et al., 1985), but lack of data for many sectors of the Russian economy precluded the application of this technique until the end of the decade. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the initial optimistic expectation was that many sectors of the new Russian economy could rapidly achieve both higher productivity and higher technical efficiency once market forces prevailed. Our research attempts to understand why this has not happened in Russian agriculture in terms of technical efficiency.Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Technical Efficiency Evaluation: Naturally Dual!

We provide a dual perspective on technical efficiency evaluation, in two respects. First, we build on the price assumptions implicitly associated with the notion of technical efficiency in a general equilibrium framework to characterize a set of appropriate references to be used in the technical efficiency evaluation of an input-output vector. Some existing evaluation methods always select an element of this set, but other methods fail to do so. Second, the above framework leads us to assert that a well-grounded measure of technical efficiency is naturally decomposable. One part refers to technical efficiency as captured by the classical Debreu-Farrell measure. The other part refers to technical efficiency resulting from the “implicit allocative efficiency” or “mix efficiency” of the evaluated vector. We present both a quantity-based distance measure and its price-based equivalent to evaluate this complementary dimension of technical efficiency. This generalized perspective encompasses the standard Debreu-Farrell framework for technical efficiency evaluation, and makes it fully consistent with the well-established Koopmans efficiency notion.

Farm Technical Efficiency and Extension

This paper presents a methodology for estimating technical efficiency levels for individual farms using both a fixed effects panel model and a stochastic production frontier approach. It tests whether the estimated technical efficiency levels are associated with measures of contact with the advisory service. The approach is applied to a panel of 307 farms drawn from the Irish National Farm Survey over the period 1984 to 1994. The results show evidence that extension contact has had a positive impact on agricultural output.

The fixed effects estimator of technical efficiency

Firms and organizations, public or private, often operate on markets characterized by non-competitiveness. For example agricultural activities in the western world are heavily subsidized and electricity is supplied by firms with market power. In general it is probably more difficult to find firms that act on highly competitive markets, than firms that are not. To measure different types of inefficiencies, due to this lack of competitiveness, has been an ongoing issue, since at least the 1950s when several definitions of inefficiency was proposed and since the late 1970s as stochastic frontier analysis. In all three articles presented in this thesis the stochastic frontier analysis approach is considered. Furthermore, in all three articles focus is on technical inefficiency. The ways to estimate technical inefficiency, based on stochastic frontier models, are numerous. However, focus in this thesis is on fixed effects panel data estimators. This is mainly for two reasons. First, the fixed effects analysis does not demand explicit distributional assumptions of the inefficiency and the random error of the model. Secondly, the analysis does not require the random effects assumption of independence between the firm specific inefficiency and the inputs selected by the very same firm. These two properties are exclusive for fixed effects estimation, compared to other stochastic frontier estimators. There are of course flaws attached to fixed effects analysis as well, and the contribution of this thesis is to probe some of these flaws, and to propose improvements and tools to identify the worst case scenarios. For example the fixed effects estimator is seriously upward biased in some cases, i.e. inefficiency is overestimated. This could lead to false conclusions, like e.g. that subsidies in agriculture lead to severely inefficient farmers even if these farmers in reality are quite homogenous. In this thesis estimators to reduce bias as well as mean square error are proposed and statistical diagnostics are designed to identify worst case scenarios for the fixed effects estimator as well as for other estimators. The findings can serve as important tools for the applied researcher, to obtain better approximations of technical inefficiency

Lumpy capital adjustment and technical efficiency

This paper investigates the impact of lumpy capital adjustment on productivity at the firm level using data on Japanese manufacturing industries. We estimate stochastic production frontiers, taking firm heterogeneity into account. We find that investment spikes are negatively related to technical efficiency. Furtermore, we find a negative relationship between machinery capital age and measured efficiency.

Technical Efficiency and Return to Scale of Dairy Farm in Sleman, YOGYAKARTA

Usahatani sapi perah di Indonesia secara ekonomi mempunyai prospek yang bagus, karena produksinya belum mencukupi permintaan susu dalam negeri. Hal ini disebabkan USAhatani tersebut masih berskala kecil dengan menggunakan teknologi yang masih tradisional, akibatnya tingkat produktivitasnya masih rendah. Kajian ini mengestimasi efisiensi teknis dan skala pengembalian, guna menemukan cara untuk meningkatkan produksi susu segar. Kajian ini mengambil tempat di Sleman, Jogjakarta tempat USAhatani sapi perah yang potensial berada. Efisiensi teknis diestimasi menggunakan produksi frontir stokastik, dan skala pengembalian diestimasi menggunakan teknologi produksi Cobb-Douglas. Hasil kajian ini menunjukkan bahwa produktivitas USAhatani sapi perah secara signifikan dipengaruhi oleh variasi efisiensi teknis, dengan rata-rata 0,69. Oleh karena itu, masih ada kemungkinan untuk meningkatkan produktivitas USAhatani sapi perah melalui peningkatan efisiensi teknis. Hal ini dapat dilakukan dengan meningkatkan jumlah sapi perah, atau skala USAhatani. Pilihan ini sejalan dengan kondisi produksi susu segar yang menunjukkan skala pengembalian yang konstan. Jadi, meningkatkan skala USAhatani adalah pilihan yang bijaksana karena pilihan tersebut tidak hanya meningkatkan tingkat produksi susu segar, tetapi juga meningkatkan produktivitas USAhatani sapi perah. (Animal Production 8(1): 64-71 (2006

The Technical Efficiency of UK Airports

In this paper, the innovative random stochastic frontier model is used to estimate the technical efficiency of UK airports. These airports are ranked according to their total productivity for the period 2000-2005 and homogenous and heterogeneous variables in the cost function are disentangled, which leads us to advise the implementation of common policies as well as policies by segments. Economic implications arising from the study are also considered.Airports; UK; efficiency; random frontier models; policy implications.

Technical Efficiency of Nigerian Insurance Companies

This paper uses data envelopment analysis (DEA) to evaluate the performance of Nigerian insurance companies, from 2001 to 2005, combining operational and financial variables. The paper also analyses the situations of these companies in relation to the frontier of best practices. In addition, it tests for the roles played by dimension, bank network and market share in the efficiency of the Nigerian insurance companies. The implications of this research for managerial purposes are then drawn.Nigerian insurance companies; Data Envelopment Analysis; Efficiency.