PROPORTIONAL PROFIT TAXES AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT UNDER PRODUCTION UNCERTAINTY

The impact of proportional profit taxes on input use is analyzed under conditions of production uncertainty and risk aversion. Two kinds of profit taxes are considered: proportional profit taxes with perfect loss offset and revenue-neutral profits taxes. Their impact on optimal input use is examined under various forms of production uncertainty, such as the Just-Pope model and the cases of multiplicative and additive uncertainty. It is shown that the structure of risk attitudes, the form of production uncertainty, the underlying (stochastic) technical interdependencies, and the risk-input relations are crucial features in determining the impact of proportional profit taxes on optimal input use.Production Economics,

A Flexible Time-Varying Specification of the Technical Inefficiency Effects Model

The temporal pattern of technical efficiency in the technical inefficiency effects model, as initially modeled by Battese and Coelli (1995), is rather restrictive. Specifically, it a priori imposes a common pattern upon all firms in the sample, which in addition is monotonic over time. Obviously this is an undesirable implication of the model especially when there is evidence of strong firm heterogeneity and/or a long time span. To overcome this shortcoming, the present paper incorporates the Cornwell, Sickless and Schmidt (1990) flexible specification of the temporal pattern of technical efficiency into technical inefficiency effects model. The proposed formulation is then applied to the agricultural sector of the EU and US, during the period 1973-1993. The empirical result support the proposed formulation as quite different temporal patterns of technical efficiency have been found for the ten countries included in the analysis.

SELF-DUAL STOCHASTIC PRODUCTION FRONTIERS AND DECOMPOSITION OF OUTPUT GROWTH: THE CASE OF OLIVE-GROWING FARMS IN GREECE

This paper provides a decomposition of output growth among olive-growing farms in Greece during the period 1987-1993 by integrating Bauer's (1990) and Bravo-Ureta and Rieger's (1991) approaches. The proposed methodology is based on the use of self-dual production frontier functions. Output growth is attributed to the size effect, technical change, changes in technical and input allocative inefficiency, and the scale effect. Empirical results indicate that the scale and the input allocative inefficiency effects, which were not taken into account in previous studies on output growth decomposition analysis, have caused a 7.3% slowdown and a 11.0% increase in output growth, respectively. Technical change was found to be the main source of TFP growth while both technical and input allocative inefficiency decreased over time. Still though, a 56.5% of output growth is attributed to input growth.Production Economics,

EXPLAINING OUTPUT GROWTH WITH A HETEROSCEDASTIC NON-NEUTRAL PRODUCTION FRONTIER: THE CASE OF SHEEP FARMS IN GREECE

This paper extends the primal decomposition of TFP changes to the case of non-neutral production frontiers. Output growth is decomposed into input growth (size effect), changes in technical efficiency, technical change, and the effect of returns to scale. Within the proposed formulation, however, technical efficiency changes are attributed not only to autonomous changes (i.e., passage of time) but also to changes in input use and in the not-so-fixed farm characteristics. The empirical model is based on a heteroscedastic non-neutral production frontier and an unbalanced panel data set of sheep farms in Greece for the period 1989-92. The technical efficiency change effect is found to be the main source of TFP growth, followed by technical change and the scale effect, which has caused a 0.35% output slowdown The not-so-fixed farm characteristics have been the most important determinant of technical efficiency changes, followed by changes in input use.

Parametric Measurement of Time-Varying Technical Inefficiency: Results from Competing Models

This paper provides an empirical comparison of time-varying technical inefficiency measures obtained from the econometric estimation of different specifications of the stochastic production frontier model. Specifically, ten different frontier model specifications, which are most widely used in empirical applications, are estimated using a balanced panel data set from the Greek olive-oil sector, consisting of 100 farms observed during 1987-93 period. The empirical results indicate that both the magnitude and individual ranking of technical efficiency estimates differs considerably across models.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Direct Subsidies and Technical Efficiency in Greek Agriculture

In this paper we apply the technical inefficiency effect model to a set of eight different crop products (i.e., wheat, mixed arable crops, tobacco, cotton, olive oil, fruits, vegetables, and greenhouse horticulture) in Greek agriculture. For each product, a panel data set covering the period 1991-1995 is used and separate econometric results are obtained for each product. A particular set of socioeconomic and demographic variables is used to explain technical efficiency differentials among Greek farmers, including the direct subsidies given to each farmer, and the concordance of these efficiency determinants is discussed across the eight different crop products considered.Direct subsidies, technical efficiency, Greek agriculture, Agricultural Finance,

EFFICIENCY, PRODUCTIVITY AND OUTPUT GROWTH: AN INTER-REGIONAL ANALYSIS OF GREEK AGRICULTURE

Output growth decomposition of the Greek olive-oil sector under technical and allocative inefficiencies, economies of scale and technical change, is performed. The stochastic production frontier model is extended to panel data and FGLS estimation. Conventional inputs are main source of growth: TFP increased in slow rate during the study period.Crop Production/Industries, Industrial Organization,

Efficiency in Damage Control Inputs: A Stochastic Production Frontier Approach

The present paper extents the existing literature providing a theoretically consistent framework for measuring input-specific technical efficiency in damage control inputs within a stochastic production frontier model. The theoretical framework for modeling damage control agents is based on Fox and Weersink (1995) model specification that allows for increasing returns on damage control inputs. The empirical model accounts veterinary expenses as the damage control input and it is applied on a panel data set of sheep farms in Greece during the 1989-92 period. The results suggest that sheep farms in Greece are using inefficiently immunization and antibiotics in their flock as their average technical efficiency level was 72.82%. On the other hand, technical efficiency in conventional factors of production was found to be considerably higher on the average, 91.32%. Finally, our results indicate that farms that are technical efficient in the use of conventional inputs are also technical efficient in the use of damage control agents.increasing returns, input-specific technical efficiency, damage and control function, sheep farms, Greece, Farm Management, Q12, Q16, C23, C51,

Measuring the Accountability of Advertising Expenses in the Presence of Sales Cost Inefficiency and Marketing Spillovers

This paper develops a tractable theoretical framework for analyzing the substitutability between different advertising media, the extent of marketing spillovers in the market, the allocative efficiency of advertising spending, and the sources of total advertising productivity and sales growth. Maintaining the separability assumption between sales and production technology, the proposed methodology relies on cost-function decomposition of total factor productivity and the duality between input distance and cost functions. Utilizing a flexible Translog advertising distance function, the methodology is applied to the advertising activity of meat processing firms in Greece during the period 1983-1997. Scale economies in advertising expenses turn out to be an important source of total advertising productivity changes in the Greek meat processing sector. Advertising spillovers are significant contributing to total advertising productivity observed. Our analysis also indicates that improvements in (technical and allocative) advertising efficiency are more important means of enhancing firm returns than improvements in advertising techniques.Advertising productivity, advertising direct distance function, media substitutability, processed meats industry, Greece