| Abstract: | Recent differences in the measurement of farm efficiency may be related to the methods employed. Here, four alternative production frontiers are estimated using time-series, cross-section data for a sample of Illinois grain farms. Efficiency measures are found to be highly correlated between nonparametric methods, and between parametric methods. However, large differences are noted when efficiency measures are compared between nonparametric and parametric methods. An analysis of farms with large differences, which are efficient under the nonparametric method, indicates that correlations between efficiency measures are much higher when these firms are excluded. |
