A Comment on Weak Disposability in Nonparametric Production Analysis

In his 2005 paper in this journal, Kuosmanen argues that Shephard's specification of weak disposability in activity analysis (DEA) models is not correct. We show that Shephard's specification does satisfy weak disposability and is the "smallest" technology to do so.     

Weak Disposability in Nonparametric Production Analysis with Undesirable Outputs

Weak disposability of outputs means that firms can abate harmful emissions by decreasing the activity level. Modeling weak disposability in nonparametric production analysis has caused some confusion. This article identifies a dilemma in these approaches: conventional formulations implicitly and unintentionally assume all firms apply uniform abatement factors. However, it is usually cost-effective to abate emissions in those firms where the marginal abatement costs are lowest. This article presents a simple formulation of weak disposability that allows for non-uniform abatement factors and preserves the linear structure of the model.     

Cost-effectiveness of alternative green payment policies for conservation technology adoption with heterogeneous land quality

This paper quantitatively analyses the cost‐effectiveness of alternative green payment policies designed to achieve a targeted level of pollution control by heterogeneous microunits. These green payment policies include cost‐share subsidies that share the fixed costs of adoption of a conservation technology and/or input reduction subsidies to reduce the use of a polluting input. The paper shows that unlike a pollution tax that achieves abatement through three mechanisms, a negative extensive margin effect, a negative intensive margin effect and a technology switching effect, a cost‐share subsidy and an input reduction subsidy are much more restricted in the types of incentives they provide for conservation of polluting inputs and adoption of a conservation technology to control pollution. Moreover, they may lead to varying levels of expansion of land under production. Costs of abatement with alternative policies and implications for production and government payments are compared using a simulation model for controlling drainage from irrigated cotton production in California, with drip irrigation as a conservation technology.     

Damage Control Productivity: An Input Damage Abatement Approach

This paper compares the value of the marginal product of three different pesticides from different specifications of the production function. The specifications are the output damage abatement specification proposed by Lichtenberg and Zilberman, a general input damage abatement specification and a traditional production function. These specifications are estimated on panel data of specialised Dutch arable farms over the period 1989–1992, using Generalised Maximum Entropy estimation. Results of the input damage abatement specification show that pesticides have different impacts on individual productive inputs, although statistical evidence is weak. The output damage abatement specification produces statistically more significant relations, but imposes restrictions that are only partly supported by the data. It is also found that estimation of a quadratic traditional production function, that treats damage abatement inputs in the same way as productive inputs, does not lead to over estimation of the value of the marginal product as previous authors have hypothesised.     

How do Agricultural Programmes Alter Crop Production? Evidence from Ecuador

Evaluating agricultural programmes requires considering not only the programmes’ influence on input and output indicators, but also considering the relationship between these indicators as embodied in the production technology. This article examines the impact on production of an intervention in the Ecuadorian Sierra designed to improve returns to potato production through training and through linking smallholders to high‐value markets. Critical to identifying the impact of the programme is the careful construction of a counterfactual and meticulous data collection. To assess the impact of the programme on production, a weighted estimation, where weights are constructed through propensity score matching, is employed to estimate a production function within a damage abatement framework. The function incorporates a series of interaction terms to assess the impact of the programme on the production technology. The findings provide evidence that the programme enhances yields both through a general shift in technology as well as increased input use. The results suggest that the use of effective farming techniques that are learned through the programme induce this technological shift.     

Cost-effective nitrogen leaching reduction as influenced by linkages between farm-level decisions

This article focuses on how the linkages between various farm‐level decisions affect the choice of measures to reduce nitrogen leaching from crop production. A mathematical programming model is developed. The model considers not only management decisions that affect nitrogen leaching directly, but also other decision variables such as scheduling of field operations and machinery investments. A simplified analysis that ignores the latter management decisions, and the linkages between the various decisions, may result in abatement policies that are not cost‐effective because the policies will have other effects than expected. As an example, the empirical results show that subsidies to catch crops and spring ploughing may contribute to increased nitrogen load, quite contrary to the purpose of these subsidies. Further, it is noted that the characteristics of the production system make it costly to change land use, tillage practices, or fertilizer use drastically. Instead, cost‐effective nitrogen abatement includes a mix of various adjustments of farm‐level production practices. The EU set‐aside payment appears to reduce abatement costs.     

Pollution abatement and productivity performance of regional Canadian pulp and paper industries

The performance of pulp and paper industries in four Canadian regions is compared based on the estimation of an input distance function, with and without pollutant outputs. Distance functions are techniques for the representation and estimation of multiple-output and multiple-input production technologies. They are quantity-based techniques. Non-marketed outputs such as pollutants can be easily incorporated into productivity analysis with the help of distance functions. This environmentally sensitive approach provides higher productivity growth estimates for all regions, indicating the need for adjusting conventional measures that ignore the non-marketed benefits of pollution abatement activities. The results also consistently indicate the presence of substantial differences in the regional levels of technical efficiency. Regional industries have not enjoyed similar rates of technological progress due to differences in their underlying structures. Productivity growth estimates for most regional industries remain weak or negative even after the recognition of pollution abatement efforts. Estimates of regional level costs of abatement for biological oxygen demand (BOD) and suspended solids (TSS) are provided.     

真空低温烹饪甜皮鸭工艺优化研究

为推动真空低温烹饪技术在甜皮鸭生产工艺中的应用,本研究以传统甜皮鸭生产工艺为基础,结合现代低温烹饪技术,通过单因素实验与正交实验对其工艺进行优化。最终确定低温烹饪甜皮鸭最佳工艺参数:慢煮温度为75℃,慢煮时间为50 min,油炸温度为150℃,油炸时间为1.0 min。本研究为低温烹饪甜皮鸭生产提供理论参考,同时也为低温烹饪技术在其他产品生产中的应用提供借鉴。     

Where in the world is it cheapest to cut carbon emissions?*

Countries with low marginal costs of abating carbon emissions may have high total costs, and vice versa, for a given climate mitigation policy. This may help to explain different countries’ policy stances on climate mitigation. We hypothesize that, under a common percentage cut in emissions intensity relative to business as usual (BAU), countries with higher BAU emission intensities have lower marginal abatement costs, but total costs relative to output will be similar across countries, and under a common carbon price, relative total costs are higher in emission‐intensive countries. Using the results of the 22nd Energy Modeling Forum (EMF‐22), we estimate marginal abatement cost curves for the US, EU, China and India, which we use to estimate marginal and total costs of abatement under a number of policy options currently under international debate. This analysis provides support for our hypotheses, although its reliability is limited by the shortcomings of the EMF‐22 models and the degree to which our econometric model can adequately account for the substantial differences among them.     

Spatial Spillovers on Input‐specific Inefficiency of Dutch Arable Farms

Traditional benchmarking implicitly assumes that decision making units operate in isolation from their peers. For arable production systems in particular, this assumption is unlikely to hold in reality. This paper quantifies spatial spillovers on input‐specific inefficiency using data envelopment analysis and a second‐stage bootstrap truncated regression model. The bootstrap algorithm is extended to allow for the estimation of the parameter of the spatial weight matrix, which captures the proximity between producers. The empirical application concerns Dutch arable farms for which latitudes and longitudes are available. The average inefficiency across years was 3.87% for productive inputs and 2.98% for damage abatement inputs under variable returns to scale. For productive inputs technical inefficiency, statistically significant spillover effects from neighbours’ age and their degree of specialisation depended on the type of the spatial weight matrix used (inverse distance or k‐nearest neighbours). Statistically significant spillover effects of subsidy payments were adverse while statistically significant spillover effects from insurance payments were beneficial. For damage abatement inputs technical inefficiency, statistically significant adverse effects were found for neighbours’ age and subsidy payments and beneficial effects from neighbours’ insurance payments and their degree of specialisation.     

Is forest carbon sequestration at the expense of bioenergy and forest products cost-efficient in EU climate policy to 2050?

Forest management affects the quantity of CO₂ emissions in the atmosphere through carbon sequestration in standing biomass, carbon storage in forest products and production of bioenergy. The main question studied in this paper is whether forest carbon sequestration is worth increasing at the expense of bioenergy and forest products to achieve the EU emissions reduction target for 2050 in a cost-efficient manner. A dynamic cost minimisation model is used to find the optimal combination of carbon abatement strategies to meet annual emissions targets between 2010 and 2050. The results indicate that forest carbon sequestration is a low-cost abatement method. With sequestration, the net present costs of meeting EU carbon targets can be reduced by 23%.     

EFFICIENT COMPLIANCE WITH AGRICULTURAL NITRATE POLLUTION STANDARDS

Non-point pollutants such as nitrates are difficult to monitor and hence control. This paper considers nitrate abatement policies for the Tyne catchment in northern England. The analysis is based on an aggregate-level LP model which predicts producers' production decisions and estimates the resulting spatial distribution of nitrogen applications and nitrate emissions. The policy evaluation compares a catchment-level nitrate emission quota, a catchment-level nitrogen input quota and nitrogen input quotas targeted at individual land classes as alternative measures to achieve nitrate concentration standards. The results indicate that targeted nitrogen input quotas provide a feasible and relatively efficient abatement policy when a lack of information on individual farms prevents the use of the least cost emission tax.     

Developing farm-specific marginal abatement cost curves: Cost-effective greenhouse gas mitigation opportunities in sheep farming systems

Growing demand for agricultural produce, coupled with ambitious targets for greenhouse gas emissions reduction present the scientific, policy and agricultural sectors with a substantial mitigation challenge. Identification and implementation of suitable mitigation measures is driven by both the measures’ effectiveness and cost of implementation. Marginal abatement cost curves (MACCs) provide a simple graphical representation of the abatement potential and cost-effectiveness of mitigation measures to aid policy decision-making. Accounting for heterogeneity in farm conditions and subsequent abatement potentials in mitigation policy is problematic, and may be aided by the development of tailored MACCs. Robust MACC development is currently lacking for mitigation measures appropriate to sheep systems. This study constructed farm-specific MACCs for a lowland, upland and hill sheep farm in the UK. The stand-alone mitigation potential of six measures was modelled, against real farm baselines, according to assumed impacts on emissions and productivity. The MACCs revealed the potential for negative cost emissions’ abatement in the sheep industry. Improving ewe nutrition to increase lamb survival offered considerable abatement potential at a negative cost to the farmers across all farms while, lambing as yearlings offered negative cost abatement potential on lowland and upland farms. The results broadly advocate maximising lamb output from existing inputs on all farm categories, and highlight the importance of productivity and efficiency as influential drivers of emissions abatement in the sector. The abatement potentials and marginal costs of other measures (e.g. reducing mineral fertiliser use and selecting pasture plants bred to minimise dietary nitrogen losses) varied between farms, and this heterogeneity was more frequently attributable to differences in individual farm management than land classification. This has important implications for the high level policy sector as no two farms are likely to benefit from a generic one size fits all approach to mitigation. The construction of further case-study farm MACCs under varying farm conditions is required to define the biophysical and management conditions that each measure is most suited to, generating a more tailored set of sector-specific mitigation parameters.     

农业适度规模经营：CES生产函数下的解释

[目的]经济学中经常出现这一现象,在生产要素替代关系相对微弱的情况下,经济总量水平与资源配置效果并非由最优的要素资源所决定,而是取决于最劣的要素资源。为揭示我国农业适度规模经营中是否存在"木桶效应",[方法]利用1990—2014年国有农场相关数据,通过对CES生产函数的拓展与改良,分析了我国农业适度规模经营中的要素资源配置问题。[结果]"木桶效应"存在于我国农业适度规模经营中,土地和劳动力成为发展农业适度规模经营的"短板"要素;[结论]虽然新型农业生产要素对粮食增量产生的作用越来越明显,然而土地资源的不可替代性以及其他要素对劳动力的替代存在边界,使得农业适度规模中的资源配置效果最终由土地和劳动力决定;农业适度规模经营并非是追求单一生产要素的扩张,而是实现土地、劳动力、农业资本、农业机械、农资、农业科技等全要素的高效组合。     

Crop Price and Risk Effects on Farm Abatement Costs

Potential leaching losses of nitrogen depend in large part on the crops grown. Since crop selection is a major means of abatement for nitrates in groundwater, it follows that the compliance costs to producers for reducing excess nitrogen is influenced by crop prices. This paper demonstrates the role that crop prices play in determining the level of on-farm abatement costs and even the necessity for regulatory policies to deal with the nitrate problem. Government support programs, specifically the Gross Revenue Insurance Program (GRIP), have increased the relative support for corn, which has higher leachate potential than other crops, and thereby requires increased abatement effort. The required level of abatement is less when risk aversion is considered than under risk neutrality, since the variability in returns among rotations is related to the degree of emissions generated. Changes in the mean and variance of relative output prices can significantly alter the optimal crop mix, leachate potential and on-farm abatement efforts. Subsequently, there is an effect on abatement costs associated with alternative environmental control instruments, which in turn affects policy design through issues such as political feasibility and equity considerations.     

Marginal abatement costs of greenhouse gas emissions: broadacre farming in the Great Southern Region of Western Australia

Broadacre agriculture is a major emitter of greenhouse gases (GHG). To improve efficiency of climate change policies, we need to know the marginal abatement costs of agricultural GHG. This article combines calculations of on‐farm GHG emissions with an input‐based distance function approach to estimate the marginal abatement costs for a broadacre farming system in the Great Southern Region of Western Australia. The results show that, in the study region, the average marginal abatement cost for the 1998–2005 periods was $29.3 per tonne CO₂‐e. Farms with higher crop output shares were found to have higher marginal abatement costs. Overall, our results indicate that broadacre agriculture is among the lowest cost sources of GHG mitigation.     

Addressing Uncertainty in Efficient Mitigation of Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The agricultural sector, as an important source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, is under pressure to reduce its contribution to climate change. Decisions on financing and regulating agricultural GHG mitigation are often informed by cost‐effectiveness analysis of the potential GHG reduction in the sector. A commonly used tool for such analysis is the bottom‐up marginal abatement cost curve (MACC) which assesses mitigation options and calculates their cumulative cost‐effective mitigation potential. MACCs are largely deterministic, typically not reflecting uncertainties in underlying input variables. We analyse the uncertainty of GHG mitigation estimates in a bottom‐up MACC for agriculture, for those uncertainties capable of quantitative assessment. Our analysis identifies the sources and types of uncertainties in the cost‐effectiveness analysis and estimates the statistical uncertainty of the results by propagating uncertainty through the MACC via Monte Carlo analysis. For the case of Scottish agriculture, the uncertainty of the cost‐effective abatement potential from agricultural land, as expressed by the coefficient of variation, was between 9.6% and 107.3% across scenarios. This means that the probability of the actual abatement being less than half of the estimated abatement ranged from <1% (in the scenario with lowest uncertainty) to 32% (in the scenario with highest uncertainty). The main contributors to uncertainty are the adoption rate and abatement rate. While most mitigation options appear to be ‘win–win’ under some scenarios, many have a high probability of switching between being cost‐ineffective and cost‐effective.     

黑龙江省农业科技园区评价指标体系研究

农业科技园区的迅速崛起,在提高与增强农业综合生产能力与竞争力方面发挥了重要作用。文章在黑龙江省农业科技园区发展的现状的基础上,对国内外相关文献进行了参考与研究,在此基础上对黑龙江省农业科技园区评价指标体系的原则进行了阐述,同时也对模型建立的程序进行了讨论,进而建立了黑龙江省农业科技园区评价指标体系。运用因子分析方法对收集的数据进行分析处理,并对黑龙江省农业科技园区的发展水平进行了评估。研究结果表明:黑龙江省农业科技园区的整体发展水平呈现上升趋势,园区的发展水平会随着经济、技术及农业投入等因子的增加而有所提高;但由于某一特殊时期资金投入、技术进步、产业结构、农业生产设备及农田水利发展水平等指标投入的减少,会导致农业科技园区发展停滞不前,甚至出现倒退的现象。据此,应该合理配置各项资源,来促进黑龙江省农业科技园区科学发展,以实现全省农业经济发展促进人民增收。     

Is Input Mix Inefficiency Neglected in Agriculture? A Case Study of Pig‐based Farming Systems in England and Wales

The principal concern of this article is the relative importance of input mix as a source of inefficiency. Emphasis in efficiency analysis studies in agricultural production has historically focused on technical inefficiency as a single concept until methodological advances enabled it to be decomposed into pure technical inefficiency and scale inefficiency. But, this advance was insufficient to identify what we consider to be the major source of inefficiency in agricultural production, namely mix inefficiency. We consider that farm enterprises may be particularly susceptible to input mix inefficiency because of restrictions on movement around the frontier isoquant; delays in the adoption of improved technologies embodied in new vintages of production processes; risk as a source of friction in input allocation decisions; and the potential for inconsistency in simultaneously attempting to reach points of allocative efficiency and mix efficiency in input use. We use non‐parametric methods to calculate a Hicks–Moorsteen productivity index using panel data for a sample of specialised pig producers in England and Wales. This index is then decomposed into measures of technology, technical efficiency, scale efficiency and mix efficiency for an input orientation. Results of the analysis show that the estimated mean mix inefficiency (0.736) was substantially larger than mean technical inefficiency (0.975) and mean scale inefficiency (0.957) over the study period.     

Fiddling while carbon burns: why climate policy needs pervasive emission pricing as well as technology promotion*

Effective climate policy requires global emissions of greenhouse gases to be cut substantially, which can be achieved by energy supply technologies with lower emissions, greater energy use efficiency and substitution in demand. For policy to be efficient requires at least fairly uniform, fairly pervasive emission pricing from taxes, permit trading or combinations of the two; and significant government support for low‐emission technologies. We compare the technology‐focused climate policies adopted by Australia and the ‘Asia–Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate’ (AP6), against this policy yardstick. We find that such policies omit the need for emission pricing to achieve abatement effectively and efficiently; they over‐prescribe which abatement actions should be used most; they make unrealistic assumptions about how much progress can be achieved by voluntarism and cooperation, in the absence of either adequate funding or mandatory policies; and they unjustifiably contrast technology‐focused policy and the Kyoto Protocol approach as the only two policies worth considering, and thus ignore important policy combinations.