Estimating the technical efficiency of damage abatment inputs: an application to pesticides in France

Estimating the technical efficiency of damage abatment inputs: an application to pesticides in Franc

On modeling pollution-generating technologies: a new formulation of the by-production approach

International audienc

On modeling pollution-generating technologies: a new formulation of the by-production approach

We contribute to the literature on undesirable-output technology modeling by first discussing the limits of the recently proposed by-production approach of Murty et al. (2012) (hereafter we will refer to these authors as MRL) and second by proposing some possible extensions. We identify two theoretical limits and two practical drawbacks when using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) with this approach. Theoretically, MRL’s by-production model is based on estimating two sub-technologies, one representing good outputs and the other one representing undesirable outputs. However, MRL assume independence of the sub-frontiers. In our paper, by contrast, we discuss the importance and implications of considering that all production processes are interconnected and should not be considered separately. Among the three extensions proposed, we argue that the introduction of some dependence constraints that link the two sub-technologies considered in this framework is very powerful. The two by-production approaches, MRL’s and ours, are discussed under the restrictive assumption of fixed levels of inputs and under the flexible case of free choice of polluting input quantities. An application to a sample of 112 countries reveals that MRL model gives higher inefficiency scores compared to our extension with dependence constraints

Components of agricultural productivity change: Replication of US evidence and extension to the EU

Increasing agricultural productivity is a policy priority in many countries. O'Donnell (Am. J. Agric. Econ. 94(4): 873–890, 2012) decomposed productivity change in US agriculture using a Lowe total factor productivity (TFP) index. We replicate the original study, assess its robustness to alternative TFP indices, and extend the analysis to EU agriculture. We consistently find that productivity growth in US agriculture is mainly driven by technical progress. In EU agriculture, TFP growth is less pronounced, and both technical change and efficiency change contribute to productivity changes. In both US and EU agriculture, the magnitude of measured productivity change varies across indices, highlighting the need to rely on multiple indices for robust policy recommendations.ISSN:2040-5790ISSN:2040-580

Axiomatic of the multi-equation modeling of pollution-generating technologies and nonparametric estimation

International audienc

Agri-environmental subsidies and French suckler cow farms’ technical efficiency accounting for GHGs

In this article we assess the impact of agri-environmental subsidies on farms’ technical efficiency, when the latter is measured with and without accounting for greenhouse gases (GHGs). The application is to a sample of beef cattle farms located in grassland areas in France during the period 1993-2013. In a first stage we calculate robust technical efficiency accounting for both good output (meat) and bad output (GHGs). In a second stage we regress the different technical efficiency scores on a set of explanatory variables including agri-environmental subsidies as an amount received by the farmer related per livestock unit. The results indicate that these subsidies had a positive impact on farms’ technical efficiency among the farmers that have adopted agri-environmental measures. This is the first work on the effect of subsidies on technical efficiency including environmental outputs, and it does not confirm the negative effect generally found in existing studies based on classic technical efficiency

Estimating the technical efficiency of damage abatment inputs: an application to pesticides in France

Estimating the technical efficiency of damage abatment inputs: an application to pesticides in Franc

Dynamic pollution-adjusted inefficiency under the by-production of bad outputs

International audienceThis article extends the by-production model to the dynamic context of adjustment costs associated with investment. The empirical application focuses on panel data of French suckler cow farms over the period 1978-2014, considering emissions of greenhouse gases as bad output. The paper estimates input and output-specific technical inefficiency scores in the dynamic context and compares them with efficiency measures from the conventional static context. Our results reveal significant differences between inefficiency scores derived from the static and the dynamic frameworks. For all variables except meat production (the good output), the inefficiency score is lower in the dynamic context than in the static context. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved