Measuring technical efficiency in the stochastic varying coefficient frontier model

Due to the assumption that the best practice methods refer to each input separately instead of the whole set of inputs used by a firm, the benchmark technology as defined in the stochastic varying coefficient frontier model may be infeasible and theoretically improper whenever the maximum response coefficients are not coming from the same production unit. To overcome this problem, we propose alternative measures of output-oriented and single-factor technical efficiencies inspired from the maximum likelihood formulation of the nonneutral frontier model. The empirical results indicate that there are significant differences between the two in terms of the estimated efficiency scores but not significant differences we detected in terms of the efficiency ranking.     

Technical efficiency in the Spanish agrofood industry

This study estimates frontier production functions with cross-section data lor the Spanish agrofood industry by using deterministic and stochastic parameuic approaches. We compute the individual technical efficiency for each firm, compare the results and explain the relationship between technical efficiency and other relevant quantitative variables. The results indicate that the Spanish agrofood industry has a level of efficiency between 68% and 93%; which means that it is potentially capable of increasing production without increasing its Consumption of inputs. This efficiency level is positively related to factor productivity and unitary labour costs.     

Measuring managerial efficiency: the case of commercial greenhouse growers

Recently the managerial decision making process has been given new attention, both in theoretical studies as well as in empirical research explaining differences in farm results. However, while critical to explaining efficiency, managerial ability has been difficult to measure and therefore often ignored. This study attempts to measure managerial ability. It divides the decision making process into four steps: goal formulation, planning, monitoring and evaluation. The quality of each step is measured in a panel of 26 specialised flower producers, The impact of decision making on the firms' efficiencies is measured by means of a stochastic frontier production function. A one‐step procedure is used in which technical and decision making parameters are jointly estimated. The results show positive associations between firm efficiency and the quality of decision making (especially monitoring and firm evaluation), indicating that this procedure has been potentially successful and is a move towards successfully measuring a critical input.     

Linear Input Aggregation Bias in Nonparametric Technical Efficiency Measurement

An attraction of the nonparametric approach to measuring technical efficiency is that no a priori structure is placed on the production process of the firm. However, inputs are typically linearly aggregated, either explicitly or implicitly. It is shown that this introduces bias in the technical efficiency measurement. The computed technical efficiency measure becomes an economic efficiency measure comprised of both technical and allocative efficiency. An empirical application demonstrates the bias.     

MEASURING FARM EFFICIENCY OVER TIME ON PHILIPPINE RICE FARMS

This paper measures farm-specific technical efficiencies of rice farms in Central Luzon, the Philippines, at discrete points in time. Stochastic frontier production functions are estimated from the International Rice Research Institute's Loop Survey for the years 1970, 1974, 1979 and 1982. From the results, a measure of relative technical efficiency is calculated for each farm for each year. The four distributions of technical efficiencies are examined. Results show that technical inefficiency is the major reason for deviation from the frontier production function. All four samples show a large range of inefficiency but in general efficiency has improved, particularly between 1979 and 1982.     

FRONTIER PRODUCTION FUNCTIONS AND THE MEASUREMENT OF TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY

A measure of relative producer performance is often useful for policy purposes and the concept of economic efficiency provides a theoretical basis for such a measure. Yet several authors argue that the concept of efficiency and conventional efficiency measures are meaningless for the evaluation of real-world performance. This paper examines some of the issues and argues that producers' performance may be measured using the concept of technical efficiency. Alternative technical efficiency measures are examined including those of Timmer (1971) and Kopp (1981). A frontier production function is estimated for a cross-section of North West farms and these two measures are computed under various assumptions on the fixity of agricultural inputs.     

油井增产措施经济评价

油井增产措施是指为了使已开采的油井增产增效,而对油井采取的一项作业工程.增产措施有多种类型,不同措施会带来不同的增产效果,但又都有不同的成本组合.对油井增产措施的经济评价,首先是措施后累积增产量的预测,其次是投资估算和成本估算,最后是对方案进行净收益分析、经济极限分析和敏感性分析.本文给出了某油井的实际评价结果.     

生产规模对中国造纸企业经济效益影响的实证分析

根据国家统计局关于中国30个省份造纸行业2007年的财务数据,编制了各省份造纸企业的9个基础财务指标,运用因子分析方法测算出了各省份造纸企业的综合效益指数,并实证分析了各省的行业规模和企业规模对造纸企业经济效益的影响。结果表明,行业规模对企业综合效益指数没有显著影响,而企业规模对企业综合效益指数有显著正的影响,并且这种影响主要来自于"盈利因子"。     

AN INDEX OF MANAGEMENT EFFICIENCY FOR EGYPTIAN AGRICULTURE: A CASE STUDY OF LARGE FARMS

An index of management efficiency in cotton production is formed for each of five geographical regions in Egypt for farms of large enough size for the functions of management and labour to be separated. The index is introduced as a variable in the production function and reveals distinct differences between the regions in the scope for improving management efficiency.     

Trade Reforms and the Efficiency of Firms in India

In this paper, we analyse the impact of reforms on manufacturing efficiency in India. The sector chosen--the cotton textile industry in India--is a very large employer and exporter and also has considerable historical significance. Its response to the reforms therefore is being watched with some concern. The paper concludes that while there was considerable dispersion in efficiency levels before the reforms, this dispersion has decreased since the reforms. To analyse this, we estimate a best practice frontier for the industry and then measure efficiency as the distance from this frontier. We find that efficiency has increased because the reforms have influenced other factors such as market shares, exports and imports and capital-labour ratios. Our results also indicate that geography--the location of the firm within a state and its proximity to a major urban centre--influences the efficiency levels of firms within it.     

中国省域森林碳汇效率演进分析

基于1999—2018年的林业发展数据,采用森林蓄积量扩展法和DEA-Malmquist法实证分析了中国29个省(市、区)森林碳汇静态效率和动态演进过程。结果表明:1999—2018年中国森林碳汇总量呈增长趋势;从静态方面看,中国碳汇效率总体较低,区域间差异大,碳汇效率的空间分布与各省(市、区)经济发展水平之间存在一定的反向关联性,纯技术效率是制约综合效率增长的主要因素;从动态方面看,Malmquist生产指数呈U型趋势发展,技术进步指数和技术效率变化指数对Malmquist生产指数的驱动作用不同。因此,相关部门要建立健全林业技术推广体系;提高森林碳汇的科技水平;完善产权激励机制;加快构建碳交易市场;促进林业资源合理配置;加强对森林资源的保护;加快推进集体林权制度改革。     

安徽省农业生产效率的测度与分析

农业是国民经济建设与发展的基础产业,农业生产率是衡量一个国家和地区农业生产水平的重要指标。文章以安徽省地级市的农业产值为研究对象,运用调整后农业投入产出数据,采用超效率DEA模型和Malmquist指数法测算2008-2018年地级市农业生产效率。结果表明:当前安徽省只有少数地级市农业生产效率达到有效,大部分地级市农业生产效率处于增长状态,存在较大发展潜力;另外,各地级市由于技术进步水平和生产规模等不同,农业生产效率也具有较大差异。基于此,安徽省应加大农业发展投入,各地级市需因地制宜提升农业生产效率,促进农业稳定发展。     

The impact of capital transfer tax on agriculture a preliminary assessment

Abstract

This paper aims to measure and compare technical efficiencies in the England and Wales dairy sector from stochastic production functions in the immediate post‐quota period. Milk Marketing Board data for a stratified random sample of dairy farms for 1984/85, 1985/86 and 1986/87 are used. The results show that average levels of efficiency have initially fallen and then stabilized over this period. Moreover, there is a high degree of correlation between the rankings of the efficiency measures.     

Productivity and Structural Heterogeneity in the Brazilian Manufacturing Sector: Trends and Determinants

Structural heterogeneity (SH)—i.e. the existence of marked asymmetries in labour productivity among firms, along with low-productivity firms forming a large share of total employment—plays an important role in development theory. But only recently has the availability of micro data made the rigorous measuring of SH possible. This paper makes compatible different databases on manufacturing production, innovation and micro-social data for Brazil—PIA, RAIS, Secex and PINTEC—for 2000–2008 in order to measure SH and analyse its determinants. First, productivity groups are formed out of the universe of Brazilian manufacturing firms using a k-mean cluster methodology. Second, the variables affecting the productivity group to which each firm belongs are tested using an ordered probit model. The results indicate that increasing returns (captured by the firm's market share, the number of employees in innovative activities, workers' years of schooling and the accumulation of workers' experience), the technological intensity of the industry, learning by exporting and public support to R&D have driven productivity growth and reproduced SH through time, as predicted by development and evolutionary theories.     

Marketing Specialty Hogs: A Comparative Analysis of Two Firms from Iowa

We study business organization and coordination of specialty-market hog production using a comparative analysis of two Iowa firms marketing niche pork. We analyze each firm's management of five key organizational challenges: planning and logistics, quality assurance, process verification and management of "credence attributes," business structure, and profit sharing. Although each firm is engaged in essentially the same activity, there are substantial differences across the two firms in the way production and marketing are coordinated. These differences are partly explained by the relative size and age of each firm, but also by the formal organizational separation between marketing and production activities in one of the firms.     

Nitrate pollution control under soil heterogeneity

This article presents results on measures to abate nitrogen pollution when soil heterogeneity is considered by using a dynamic model of corn production. Several policy options for the control of nitrate pollution are evaluated by their cost efficiency. While results show that a nitrogen standard or tax is a good second-best control instrument, neglecting dynamics may lead to the wrong choice of instrument. Other important findings for the design of nonpoint pollution policy measures are that water pricing, as advocated by the Water Framework Directive, is inefficient as a pollution abatement tool, and differentiating control measures by soil type enhances welfare, although welfare gains may be small.     

Diversification economies and specialisation efficiencies in a mixed food and coffee smallholder farming system in Papua New Guinea

Smallholder farming systems in Papua New Guinea are characterised by an integrated set of cash cropping and subsistence food cropping activities. In the Highlands provinces, the subsistence food crop sub-system is dominated by sweet potato production. Coffee dominates the cash cropping sub-system, but a limited number of food crops are also grown for cash sale. The dynamics between sub-systems can influence the scope for complementarity between, and technical efficiency of, their operations, especially in light of the seasonality of demand for household labour and management inputs within the farming system. A crucial element of these dynamic processes is diversification into commercial agricultural production, which can influence factor productivity and the efficiency of crop production where smallholders maintain a strong production base in subsistence foods.
In this study we use survey data from households engaged in coffee and food crop production in the Benabena district of Eastern Highlands Province to derive technical efficiency indices for each household over two years. A stochastic input distance function approach is used to establish whether diversification economies exist and whether specialisation in coffee, subsistence food or cash food production significantly influences technical efficiency on the sampled smallholdings.
Diversification economies are weakly evident between subsistence food production and both coffee and cash food production, but diseconomies of diversification are discerned between coffee and cash food production. A number of factors are tested for their effects on technical efficiency. Significant technical efficiency gains are made from diversification among broad cropping enterprises.     

生态文明建设背景财政扶持、林权改革对林业生产效率的影响

基于2000—2016年中国省际面板数据,利用DEA-Malmquist指数法对中国林业生产效率的区域差异和时序变化进行研究,运用面板Tobit模型检验财政扶持对林业生产效率的影响并验证林权改革对二者关系的调节作用。研究发现:在生态文明建设背景下,林业生产效率存在显著的区域差异;技术进步对于全要素生产率的提升起到重要推进作用;财政扶持与林权改革均对林业生产效率产生了正向影响,但林权改革并没有对财政扶持与林业生产效率的关系产生积极调节作用。因此,各省份应当通过加大政府扶持力度、优化投资方式、深化集体林权制度改革等措施促进林业生产效率提升。     

Firm Dynamics with Tradable Output Permits

We study firm dynamics, firm value, equilibrium permit prices and market efficiency in a natural resource industry that is managed with tradable output permits. New firms must purchase capital and output permits before they enter. Active firms must consider the economic cost of capital and the cost of owning the permit when contemplating exit. The value of the capital used in the production process has nonseparable effects on permit prices and market efficiency. Costly investment reversibility (in the firm's productive capital) and uncertainty reduce permit prices and prolong the abandonment of unproductive capital. Policies to improve economic performance are identified.     

The Simple Analytics of Transferable Production Quota: Implications for the Marginal Cost of Ontario Milk Production

Using a competitive dynamic optimization model, the difference between unused and used industrial milk quota values is shown to give an exact measure of the annual rental rate of production quota. Knowledge of the rental rate of production quota and output price can be used to impute the marginal cost of industrial milk production. However, if there is a transfer tax on production quota sales, the imputation of the equilibrium rental value of quota depends on the elasticity of demand and supply for quota as well as the level of the transfer assessment. The marginal cost of Ontario milk production is estimated for each year from 1980–81 to 1994–95, based on unused and used quota values. However, the imputed marginal cost estimates are not totally satisfactory. The results suggest that caution should be exercised in using the difference between unused and used quota prices as a measure of the rental rate of industrial milk production quota.