A Parametric Approach to Estimating Eco‐Efficiency

The concept of eco‐efficiency is becoming increasingly popular as a tool to capture economic and environmental aspects of agricultural production. The literature to date has exclusively used the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach to measure producers’ eco‐efficiency. We show that it can also be estimated using a Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) approach. Our approach not only allows controlling for random noise in the data but also permits an analysis of the potential substitutability between environmental pressures. We provide an empirical application of our model to data on a sample of Spanish dairy farms.     

The Contribution of Unmeasurable Inputs to Fisheries Production: An Analysis of Technical Efficiency of Fishing Vessels in the English Channel

Variations in the efficiency of demersal trawlers operating in the English Channel were examined through the estimation of a stochastic frontier production function. The most important measurable factor affecting efficiency was the age of the vessel. However, unmeasurable factors accounted for about 65% of the variation in efficiency, and as much as 9% of the total variation in catches between boats. It is postulated that most of this variation was due to differences in skipper and crew skill. In contrast, "luck" accounted for around 11% of the variation in catches between boats.