Technology Adoption in French Agriculture and the Role of Financial Constraints

Successive CAP reforms have increased the exposure of European agriculture to market forces. As a result, farmers have become preoccupied with their competitiveness and have progressively adopted best practices. However, these long-run technological adjustments could be slowed down by eventual shortrun financial constraints. This contribution measures the role of these financial constraints on the catching-up component of total factor productivity for a panel of French farmers in Nord-Pas-de-Calais region during 1994-2001. For TFP estimates based on non-parametric distance functions, the second stage econometric results indicate that the technological adaptation is significantly conditioned by financial constraints.TFP catching-up, distance function, financial constraints, Agricultural Finance, Farm Management, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

How can allocative inefficiency reveal risk preference? An empirical investigation on French wheat farms

We focus on a simple framework on wheat producer behaviour in a context of price output uncertainty. More precisely, we establish a relationship between ex post output price level and allocative inefficiency that allows to characterize farmers’ risk preferences. Given this analysis, the connection between risk aversion and other socioeconomic variables (such as degree of output specialisation, total asset, debts, farmer’s age…) can furthermore empirically be explored. This relationship is empirically tested on an unbalanced panel including about 650 wheat producers located in the French Department of Meuse over 1992- 2003.Producer behaviour, allocative inefficiency, risk aversion, Crop Production/Industries, Risk and Uncertainty,

Modelling Technical Efficiency of Horticulture Farming in Kosovo: An Application of Data Envelopment Analysis

With a view to integration into the European Union, the efficiency and competitiveness of the Kosovo' different sectors (including agriculture) must be improved. This paper assesses the technical efficiency (TE) of horticultural farms through Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) applying output orientation. It was found that the TE of these farms is positively affected by their size, with large-size farms presenting overall higher technical efficiency. The research findings indicate that the degree of agricultural education does not have a significant impact on TE, whereas public assistance through subsidies and grants has a substantial and negative impact on TE, as confirmed by statistical analysis

Energy efficiency measurement in agriculture with imprecise energy content information

Energy efficiency measurement is crucial when planning energy reduction policies. However, decision makers understandably will be reluctant to act in the absence of solid data and results supporting a policy position. The main objective of this paper is to propose an alternative method to measure farm energy efficiency. This method is based on the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach in a cost framework introduced by Farrell (1957) and developed by Färe et al. (1985). We decompose the energy efficiency measurement into two components, namely technical and allocative efficiencies. Here, input prices are replaced by their energy content. The energy efficiency model is used to explore the optimal input-mix that produces the current outputs at minimum energy-consumption. We show that this decomposition can help policy makers considerably to design accurate energy policies. The presence of uncertainty on data, and more particularly on energy content of inputs, leads us to recommend exploiting the methodologies proposed for calculating the bounds of efficiency measurement in order to produce more robust results. We expect to alert policy-makers in the fact that efficiency is not a fixed value and should be considered with caution. A 2007 database of French farms specialized in crops is used for empirical illustration

The measurement of energy performance

ADEME (the French national environmental and energy agency) develops tools in order to measure farm energy performance. The actual measurement is based on the total amount of energy consumed by farmers. The main objective of this paper is to propose an alternative method that can be used in order to improve this measurement. The alternative method that we propose is based on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) models. Following the procedure adopted in a cost framework by Farrell (1957) and developed by Färe et al. (1985), we propose to decompose an overall energy performance measurement into two components, namely technical and allocative performances. In order to do this, we replace prices by energy content of inputs. We show that this decomposition can considerably help policy makers to design accurate energy policies. The presence of uncertainty on data, and more particularly on energy content of inputs, leads us to recommend exploiting the methodology proposed by Camanho and Dyson (2005) in order to produce more robust results. Thus, this methodology allows deriving both upper and lower bounds for the performance measurements. A year 2007 database of French farms specialized in crops is used for empirical illustration

Analysis of Environmental Total Factor Productivity Evolution in European Agricultural Sector

Productivity analysis has been an important avenue for economic research. Therefore, medleys of quantitative techniques have been proposed to operationalize productivity analysis. In this paper, we propose an extended by-production model which ensures a link between the production and the pollution-generating sub-technologies. The corresponding dual formulations are provided to interpret the economic role of pollution-generating inputs in the sub-technologies. Finally, we integrate the proposed model with the environmental Luenberger-Hicks-Moorsteen productivity indicator based upon input and output directional distance functions. The proposed model is applied to measure the green economic growth of agricultural sectors of the selected European countries

Testing for nominal convergence in the Central American area: evidence from panel data unit-root tests

Inflation convergence between the Central American Area and the United States is investigated using both recent homogeneous and heterogeneous panel data unit-root methods. Strong rejections of unit-root hypothesis are found, and therefore evidence of Purchasing Power Parity, in the Central American countries for the 1981:1-2005:4 period. Then by considering the nominal convergence criterion, the dollarization system seems to be suited to this region.

Technology Adoption in French Agriculture and the Role of Financial Constraints

Successive CAP reforms have increased the exposure of European agriculture to market forces. As a result, farmers have become preoccupied with their competitiveness and have progressively adopted best practices. However, these long-run technological adjustments could be slowed down by eventual shortrun financial constraints. This contribution measures the role of these financial constraints on the catching-up component of total factor productivity for a panel of French farmers in Nord-Pas-de-Calais region during 1994-2001. For TFP estimates based on non-parametric distance functions, the second stage econometric results indicate that the technological adaptation is significantly conditioned by financial constraints

How can allocative inefficiency reveal risk preference? An empirical investigation on French wheat farms

We focus on a simple framework on wheat producer behaviour in a context of price output uncertainty. More precisely, we establish a relationship between ex post output price level and allocative inefficiency that allows to characterize farmers’ risk preferences. Given this analysis, the connection between risk aversion and other socioeconomic variables (such as degree of output specialisation, total asset, debts, farmer’s age…) can furthermore empirically be explored. This relationship is empirically tested on an unbalanced panel including about 650 wheat producers located in the French Department of Meuse over 1992- 2003