capacity utilization under regulatory constraints this paper presents a methodology for predicting the effect of quota type regulatory constraints on capacity utilization for a multiproduct profit maximizing firm the approach builds on recent advances in the use of virtual prices to model the effects of rationing this allows the effects of regulatory constraints to be examined ex ante the methodol ogy is illustrated through a case study of the imposition of output quotas in an open access marine fishing industry on the pacific coast of the united states the results suggest that for certain species output quotas can cause strong disinvestment incentives have been used for many years to analyze the current status of the economy the expansion ary or contractionary forces on investment and inflation and productivity movements tradi tional cu measures were based on the notion of maximum possible output recently economists have developed measures derived from the eco nomic theory of the firm and based instead on a notion of optimal output berndt and fuss 1986 hickman 1964 klein 1960 morrison 1985 1988 segerson and squires 1990a these measures assume that some inputs are quasi fixed and that capacity utilization is determined by the level of the quasi fixed input s relative to the level of output previous studies of theory based cu measures have generally assumed that the industry under study was free from regulatory constraints an exception is morrison s 1988 study which ana lyzed among other things the effect of pollution control regulations on capacity utiliza tion in the u s and canadian steel industries the analysis is retrospective however since it studied the impacts of regulations that were al ready in effect in many cases it would be useful to be able to predict the effect of proposed regulations on ca pacity utilization such prospective or ex ante analysis would provide regulators with useful information regarding the likely effect of alterna tive policies on investment incentives for exam ple regulatory production limits on a single product such as quotas may cause multiproduct firms to change the volume and mix of their production which could in turn change invest ment incentives 1 likewise input use restrictions could affect both output supplies and the de mands for unregulated inputs thereby altering investment incentives predictions of these changes would contribute to designing more ef fective public policies regulating capacity and in vestment

primal and dual capacity utilization an application to productivity measurement in the u s automobile industry capacity utilization measures have traditionally been constructed as indexes of actual as compared to potential output this potential or capacity output y can be represented within an economic model of the firm as the tangency between the short and long run average cost curves economic theoretical measures of capacity utilization cu can then be characterized as y y where y is the realized level of output these quantity or primal cu measures allow for economic interpretation they provide explicit inference as to how changes in exogenous variables affect cu additional information for analyzing deviations from capacity production can be obtained by assessing the dual cost of the gap in this article the definitions and representations of primal output and dual cost cu measures are formalized within a dynamic model of a monopolistic firm as an illustration of this approach to characterizing cu measures a model is estimated for the u s automobile industry 1959 1980 and primal and dual cu

do farmers benefit from participating in specialty markets and cooperatives the case of coffee marketing in costa rica1 historically low prices in the conventional coffee market have caused financial and social hardship among coffee farmers in the face of this crisis specialty markets have attracted the attention of the international donor community these market segments have shown consistent growth over the last decade and exhibit price premiums in international markets therefore if higher prices are passed on to farmers access to specialty markets could help to alleviate the crisis brought on by low prices in the conventional sector the present study attempts to identify the factors that determine farmers participation in specialized markets and whether participation in these markets leads to higher prices for farmers a two stage model is used to analyze farmers marketing decisions and their effect on the prices received this procedure allows us to control for the endogeneity bias introduced by the marketing choice our results indicate that farmers participating in the specialty coffee segment do in fact receive higher prices than those participating in conventional channels additionally we find that participation in cooperatives has a positive impact on the probability that a farmer chooses to grow specialty coffee and analogously on the prices that they receive based on these results it seems that efforts to increase participation in the specialty coffee segment and in cooperatives would help to lessen some of the hardships brought on by low prices in the conventional coffee sector

investment drivers in a fishery with tradable quotas i analyze drivers of investment in a fishery with tradable quotas theory predicts that tradable quotas increase efficiency because efficient firms buy quotas from less efficient firms i identify what drives investment using data on norwegian purse seiners results show that while the basic economic investment model explains investment within firms it does not explain differences between firms these differences are explained by other firm specific factors such as geographical location whether it is a family firm and prices paid for quotas consequently investment strategies are not necessarily driven by efficiency considerations and quota trade may not increase allocative efficiency jel q22 q28

firm behavior under quantity controls the theory of virtual quantities the theory of virtual quantities the dual to virtual prices provides a framework to analyze competitive multiproduct firm behavior under multiple quantity controls on inputs and outputs including command and control quotas and transferable property rights the framework addresses the firm s reactions to regulatory controls impacts of adding or dropping quantity controls inferring unrationed from rationed production and conversion from command and control quotas to cap and trade systems with transferable property rights and secondary market behavior the paper develops reasons for failure of quasi concavity of technology extends the elasticity of intensity s properties and integrates the virtual price and virtual quantity frameworks virtual quantities are applied to assess potential firm responses to quantity controls and a potential transferable property right in a malaysian fishery

evaluating the impact of agricultural extension on farms performance in crete a nonneutral stochastic frontier approach this article attempts to integrate the production and the efficiency based approaches for evaluating the impact of extension on farms performance for this purpose the nonneutral production frontier model is used and the empirical analysis refers to a sample of farms from crete greece the empirical results support the proposed formulation instead of either the production or the efficiency based formulations as extension was found to have a statistically significant effect on closing both the technology and management gaps public and private extension services were found to be competitive in the production function and complementary in the technical inefficiency effect function in addition farms using both public and private extension services achieved a higher degree of technical efficiency than those using either public or private extension services and farms with no extension services were found to be the least efficient

new perspectives on the innovation strategies of multinational enterprises lessons for technology policy in europe abstract the aim of this contribution is to learn more about changes in the innovation strategies of large multinational corporations whereby one focus is on internationalization aspects as sources for our analyses we reviewed the main empirical studies and gathered information and insights from 21 corporations our results show firstly that the internationalization of research and technology is still characterized by triadization involving companies from the us the european union and japan secondly qualitative motives are increasingly driving r d location decisions like learning from technological excellence and lead markets and dynamic interactions within the value chain thirdly the process of internationalization in research and technology has been accompanied by an increasingly selective focus on a very few locations and the concentration of innovation activities on worldwide centers of excellence we conclude that these changes in the innovation strategies of large multinational companies put several topics on the agenda for technology policy in europe 1 a stronger focus on extra european collaboration and mobility 2 strengthening the attractiveness of the european union to foreign r d investment and 3 the absorptive capacities of r d organizations in europe 4 a stronger integration of different policy areas and of indirect policy measures 5 as well as the establishment of a transparent and global framework for policy coordination and priority setting worldwide

sources procedures and microeconomic effects of innovation fabio arcangeli paul david frank engelman christopher freeman massimo moggi richard nelson luigi orsenigo nathan rosenberg michele salvati g n von tunzelman two anonymous referees and the participants at the meeting of the committee on distribution growth and technical progress of the italian national research council cnr rome november 16 1985 have helped with various redraftings a particularly grateful acknowledgment is for the insightful and patient help of moses abramovitz this work has been undertaken at the science policy research unit spru university of sussex as part of the research program of the designated research centre sponsored by the economic and social research council esrc earlier support to the research that led to this paper by the italian national research council cnr is also gratefully acknowledged the statistical research has been undertaken with the assistance of stephano brioschi ilaria fornari and giovannu prennushi

patterns of internationalisation of corporate technology location vs home country advantages given the trends towards increasing globalisation of markets and of production the globalisation of technology remains a subject of considerable interest to analysts and policy makers in the 1990s this paper provides some new empirical observations for debate and discussion on the patterns of technological activities of large firms outside their home countries it is based on a systematic analysis of the us patenting activities of 220 of the most internationalised firms in terms of their technology in the 1990s although firms are active outside their home countries in the high technology fields such as computers pharmaceuticals telecommunications image and sound and materials quite a sizeable proportion of their foreign activities are concerned with process and machinery technologies moreover a comparison of the technological advantage of the company at home and the advantage of the location shows that in a large majority of cases firms tend to locate their technology abroad in their core areas where they are strong at home these results suggest that adapting products and processes and materials to suit foreign markets and providing technical support to off shore manufacturing plants remain major factors underlying the internationalisation of technology they are also consistent with the notion that firms are increasingly engaging in small scale activities to monitor and scan new technological developments in centres of excellence in foreign countries within their areas of existing strength however there is little evidence to suggest that even these most internationalised firms routinely go abroad to compensate for their weakness at home

risk aversion and credit constraints in farmers decision making a reinterpretation in 1976 the agricultural development council sponsored a conference on risk uncertainty and agricultural development which has been summarised in a volume edited by james roumasset jean marc boussard and inderjit singh 1979 the volume provides an excellent review of the state of the art at that time however as discussed in the summary chapters of that volume there were few theoretical empirical or policy issues on which clear conclusions could be reached on the basis of knowledge then available in the intervening years progress has been made on a number of issues as a result of both empirical investigations and theoretical advances this paper concentrates on advances which have relevance to the controversy about the relative roles of risk aversion and credit constraints in limiting farmers investment levels especially for purchased inputs such as seeds or fertilizers in particular we review recent experimental studies on the extent of risk aversion among farmer populations in developing

the impact of high value markets on smallholder productivity in the ecuadorean sierra a stochastic production frontier approach correcting for selectivity bias abstract this paper uses data from small scale potato farmers in ecuador to examine the impact of the program plataformas de concertacion on productivity growth using propensity score matching combined with a stochastic production frontier model that corrects for sample selection bias we disaggregate the yield growth attributable to the program into technological change tc and technical efficiency te while the results do not exhibit a clear indication of selection bias the analysis does show that on average beneficiaries exhibit higher yields than control farmers given the same input levels but lower te with respect to their own frontiers these results suggest that while the program raised the technology gap in favor of beneficiaries it had a negative effect on te in the short run the latter finding is consistent with the notion that beneficiaries enjoyed a significant change in production techniques but it is very likely that they were still in the learning by doing stages at the time the data was collected in fact the results suggest a fast recovery in te levels on the part of beneficiaries as time with project increased

credible enticements can host governments tailor multinational firms organizations to suit national objectives abstract this article discusses the impact of host government policy inconsistency on multinational corporations relationships with local suppliers that benefit from public funding empirical findings suggest that such relationships suffer from transactions cost disadvantages due to concerns that unexpected losses of funding may cause the suppliers to demand new contracts the findings reflect statistical tests on a structural equation latent variable model using data from a survey of 111 affiliates of mncs operating in 36 countries

multidivisional vs metanational governance of the multinational enterprise the effective and efficient management of diversified business firms that supply multiple products and operate in multiple dynamic markets especially large multinational enterprises mnes builds upon a number of specific governance principles these governance principles allow the alignment of environmental characteristics strategy and organization given the rising need to learn from the world doz et al in their influential harvard business school press book entitled from global to metanational have proposed a new set of governance principles described under the metanational umbrella concept this paper revisits the metanational using a comparative institutional perspective here we contrast multidivisional and metanational governance principles a comparative institutional analysis suggests that the metanational s application potential in terms of actually improving the effectiveness and efficiency of mne governance may be subject to more qualification than suggested by doz et al senior mne management must therefore reflect carefully before substituting metanational governance principles for the more conventional multidivisional ones with established contributions to managerial effectiveness and efficiency

systematic departures from the frontier a framework for the analysis of firm inefficiency departures from a production or cost frontier may reflect the systematic effect of conditions that contribute to inefficiency to test whether some portion of frontier function departures can be systematically explained the frontier inefficiency error component is modeled as a function of various causal factors and a random component the functional form of the inefficiency error term model is chosen to assure strict one sidedness preliminary empirical results generated from electric utility data suggest the superiority of including both systematic and random components in the inefficiency error term

access to capital and agrarian production organisation there are two problems both universal that entrepreneurs in any economy must contend with firstly an agent generally has access only to a limited amount of working capital secondly workers hired by an agent are subject to moral hazard and this necessitates their supervision this paper models for an agrarian economy the constraints imposed on entrepreneurs activities by these two problems and endogenously determines the various organisational forms of production as well as the allocation of resources that will obtain with a simple model we endeavour to explain a diverse set of empirical observations pertaining to the less developed countries in terms of the general processes that determine the distribution of income among the various agents and the hierarchical relationships that develop among them agricultural production typically involves a period of several months between the time the inputs are purchased and the time the output is marketed access to working capital and hence to the credit market thus plays an important role in a farmer s production decisions the distribution of access to credit in turn tends to be an important determinant of income distribution in poor agrarian economies credit is invariably rationed according to the ability to offer collateral the amount of working capital a farmer can mobilise therefore depends on the amount of land he owns which is often a good proxy for his overall wealth and thus his ability to offer collateral further since hired hands have a propensity to shirk they need to be supervised and therefore the

the latte revolution regulation markets and consumption in the global coffee chain abstract coffee is a truly global commodity and a major foreign exchange earner in many developing countries the global coffee chain has changed dramatically as a result of deregulation new consumption patterns and evolving corporate strategies from a balanced contest between producing and consuming countries within the politics of international coffee agreements power relations shifted to the advantage of transnational corporations a relatively stable institutional environment where proportions of generated income were fairly distributed between producing and consuming countries turned into one that is more informal unstable and unequal through the lenses of global commodity chain analysis this paper examines how these transformations affect developing countries and what policy instruments are available to address the emerging imbalances

offshoring administrative and technical work new fields for understanding the global enterprise in this paper we introduce the journal of international business studies special issue on offshoring administrative and technical services ats in doing so we have attempted to locate the topic within the international business research tradition as well as suggest challenges and opportunities that the phenomenon offers to theoretical and empirical research in the field we examine the interplay of costs knowledge and innovation in the evolution of ats offshoring from modest beginnings to its current stature as an accepted business practice we suggest that understanding the continuing evolution of ats offshoring requires researchers to take into account not only the business imperative of cost saving but also a more complex set of underlying factors and potential outcomes we argue that the rapid growth of ats offshoring has brought about an accumulation of resources including financial flows knowledge infrastructure and human capital to create new platforms for knowledge creation and innovation low costs may characterize the initial conditions for offshoring but they also provide the basis for up market moves as firms increasingly pursue innovation based strategies we introduce the papers in the special issue as integral elements in our discussion contributing new ideas that stimulated our thinking and hopefully will do the same for others seeking to understand this emerging area of globalization and international managerial practice journal of international business studies 2009 40 887 900 doi 10 1057 jibs 2009 22

outsourcing and offshoring implications for productivity of business services this paper reviews the implications of outsourcing and offshoring for the productivity of business services in the uk official statistics indicate that business service productivity has grown by over 20 per cent in the last 7 years at the same time as employment grew by 20 per cent the paper considers possible factors that account for the simultaneous growth of employment and productivity first we discuss outsourcing and offshoring and their role in enhancing productivity through greater specialization standardization and consolidation of business processes and a shift to higher value added services outsourcing of business services is interpreted as part of corporate restructuring namely as the unbundling of corporate functions as well as vertical disintegration second as some services become more like products both low skilled and high skilled jobs are subjected to productivity growth through standardization and digitization it is argued however that the future of business service productivity is on a knife edge depending on the mix of two sources of productivity enhancement namely greater standardization and capturing value from customized solutions copyright 2006 oxford university press

decomposition of productivity growth using distance functions the case of dairy farms in three european countries within an output distance function framework the total factor productivity growth index is decomposed into four components technical change technical and allocative efficiency and scale component we estimate stochastic translog output distance functions using panel data from dairy farms over the period 1991 94 for three european countries germany the netherlands and poland results indicate that the change in the productivity growth index in germany 6 and poland 5 are mainly dictated by the technical change component in contrast the productivity growth index in the netherlands 3 is influenced by allocative efficiency components

static efficiency decompositions and capacity utilisation integrating economic and technical capacity notions starting from existing static decompositions of overall economic efficiency on nonparametric production and cost frontiers this article proposes more comprehensive decompositions including several cost based notions of capacity utilization furthermore in case prices are lacking we develop additional decompositions of overall technical efficiency integrating a technical concept of capacity utilization these new efficiency decompositions provide a link between short and long run economic analysis and in empirical work avoid conflating inefficiency and differences in capacity utilization an empirical analysis using a monthly panel of chilean hydro electric power plants illustrates the potential of these decomposition proposals

capacity and capacity utilization in common pool resource industries excess capacity poses one of the most pressingproblems that arise when industries exploitcommon pool natural resources it entailsover investment in the capital stock andexcessive use of variable inputs and placesadditional exploitation pressures on theresource stocks confusion persists over theappropriate definition and measurement ofcapacity and capacity utilization for theseindustries but understanding capacity and itsmeasurement is necessary to properly design acapacity management program this paperaddresses these issues by overviewing theconceptual and theoretical bases for capacityand capacity utilization measurement identifying specific problems for common poolresources outlining alternative methodologiesfor their measurement and illustrating the useof these definitions and measurement methods ina fisheries case study

the role of path dependency and managerial intentionality a perspective on international business research several decades of research in the field of international business have advanced various theories and studies on the internationalization of firms our assessment of the literature on internationalization shows that the focus has been primarily on path dependency and learning based aspects of internationalization while managerial intentionality and the possibility of managers making deliberate strategic choices towards further internationalization have not been very prominent in the ib literature we argue that internationalization paths and processes should be approached as a joint outcome of management intentionality and experience based learning in other words managers are assumed to have the ability and the intention to influence the evolutionary paths of the firm we derive a future research agenda that calls for the pursuit of this promising and emergent research stream moreover we develop a model integrating managerial intentionality knowledge experience and other factors institutional and selection forces to explain heterogeneous outcomes of internationalization positions paths and processes

the globalisation of technology what remains of the product cycle model this paper reexamines two hypotheses associated with earlier versions of the product cycle model the first hypothesis that innovations are almost always located in the home country of the parent company is rejected on the basis of evidence drawn from one hundred years of u s patent office data the second hypothesis that the international dispersion of activity is led by technology leaders is historically valid however over the last twenty years technology leaders have been ahead instead in the globalization of technology that is in developing internal international networks to exploit the locationally differentiated potential of foreign centers of excellence c 1995 academic press inc copyright 1995 by oxford university press

production quota in multiproduct pacific fisheries abstract assessing the individual firm s technology and costs in a multispecies fishery allows design of a more effective output quota prior to regulation by anticipating and controlling for the firm s regulation induced responses an empirical study of a pacific coast trawl fishery indicates that the firm s flexibility of product decision is tightly constrained by its technology and cost structure hence as the resource stock for the regulated species sablefish deteriorates and the trip quota progressively tightens the firm cannot sufficiently reorganize its product bundle to preclude increasingly large sablefish disposal this defeats the purpose of the production quota

on measuring economic efficiency summary this paper considers a system consisting of a production frontier and factor share equations to measure firm specific technical efficiency and input specific allocative efficiency simultaneously in estimating the system as a whole the joint distribution of all errors in the equations is used this is more efficient than using the marginal distribution of a function of the errors as one does by estimating either the profit function or the production function alone the workability of the method is illustrated by applying it to farm level data from philippines agriculture

technical and scale efficiency of crop and livestock farms in poland does specialization matter l efficacite technique et d echelle des exploitations agricoles polonaises est calculee par la methode data envelopment analysis l etude porte sur les differences selon l orientation productive en grandes cultures ou elevage a deux dates de la transition en 1996 et en 2000 l article examine de plus la variabilite statistique des resultats d efficacite ceux ci sont revus a la lumiere des intervalles de confiance construits gr ce au bootstrapping en moyenne les exploitations d elevage ont une efficacite technique et d echelle superieure aux exploitations de grandes cultures l efficacite d echelle est toutefois tres elevee pour les deux orientations l inefficacite technique semble donc due principalement a une inefficacite technique pure c est a dire a une gestion inefficace la faible education des agriculteurs en est une raison majeure en 2000 64 des exploitations d elevage et 86 des exploitations de grandes cultures presentaient des retours d echelle croissants ce resultat suggere des recommandations politiques afin de supprimer les incitations a garder une structure operationnelle fragmentee et de stimuler le marche de la terre il s agit en particulier d ameliorer la legislation concernant la location des terres et de modifier le systeme de retraite agricole

transactions cost economics and the multinational enterprise an assessment abstract this paper applies transactions cost principles to the multinational enterprise in order to ascertain its distinctive properties as a mode of economic organization the analysis helps identify just when and where contractual alternatives to the multinational firm are likely to be viable this turns out to depend upon the nature of the technology the regime of appropriability within which the firm operates and the characteristics of the markets in question transactions cost analysis is also extended to the multinational enterprise host country relationship implications for management and public policy are derived

semiglobalization and international business strategy if markets were either completely isolated by or integrated across borders there would be little room for international business strategy to have content distinctive from mainstream strategy but a review of the economic evidence about the international integration of markets indicates that we fall in between these extremes into a state of incomplete cross border integration that i refer to as semiglobalization more specifically most measures of market integration have scaled new heights in the last few decades but still fall far short of economic theory s ideal of perfect integration the diagnosis of semiglobalization does more than just supply a relatively stable frame of reference for thinking about the environment of cross border operations it also calls attention to the critical role of location specificity in the prospects of distinctive content for international business strategy relative to mainstream business and corporate strategy in addition it flags factors products subject to location specificity as being salient from the perspective of international business finally it highlights the scope for strategies that strive to capitalize on the large residual barriers to cross border integration as well as those that simply try to cope with them

on price risk and the inverse farm size productivity relationship abstract the oft observed inverse relationship between farm size and productivity has elicited several explanations having important policy and theoretical implications using advances in the analysis of price risk effects on producer behavior and a simple two period model of an agricultural household that both produces and consumes under price uncertainty at the time labor allocation decisions are made this paper demonstrates analytically that a non degenerate land distribution and price risk can together produce an inverse relationship even absent any of the more common explanations empirical evidence from madagascar confirms the plausibility of this intuitive explanation for the phenomenon

factors affecting the technical efficiency among smallholder farmers in the slash and burn agriculture zone of cameroon abstract this paper estimates technical efficiency among small holder farmers in the slash and burn agriculture zone of cameroon and identifies sources of inefficiency using detailed survey data obtained from 450 farmers over 15 villages throughout 2001 2002 growing season we find that the mean levels of technical efficiency are 77 73 and 75 respectively for groundnut monocrop maize monocrop and maize groundnut farming systems suggesting existence of substantial gains in output and or decreases in cost with available technology and resources the efficiency differences are explained significantly by credit soil fertility social capital distance of the plot from the access road and extension services policy recommendations are drawn from these findings

a generalized production frontier approach for estimating determinants of inefficiency in u s dairy farms this article investigates farm level efficiency of u s dairy farmers by estimating their technical and allocative efficiency technical inefficiency is assumed to be composed of a deterministic component that is a function of some farm specific characteristics and a random component by doing this we extend the stochastic frontier methodology in which determinants of technicial inefficiency are explicitly introduced in the model given the inputs variations in efficiency of farms are then explained by both deterministic and random components of technical inefficiency the empirical results indicate that a levels of education of the farmer are important factors determining technical inefficiency and b large farms are more efficient technically than small and medium sized farms both technical and allocative inefficiency are found to decrease with increase in the level of education of the farmer

technical efficiency of alternative farming systems the case of greek organic and conventional olive growing farms abstract olive growing is a major farming activity in greek agriculture this paper analyzes empirically the technical efficiency of organic and conventional olive growing farms using a stochastic production frontier methodology and a translog functional specification findings indicate that the organic olive growing farms examined exhibit a higher degree of technical efficiency relative to their production frontier than do conventional olive growing farms reasons may include lower profit margins and restrictions on inputs permitted thus forcing organic farmers to be more cautious with input use however both input and output oriented technical efficiency scores are still relatively low for both types of olive farming thus there is considerable scope for cost reducing and farm income improvement in both farming modes this could prove crucial for the long run viability and the future course of the sector

institutional and socioeconomic constraints on the second generation green revolution a case study of basmati rice production in pakistan s punjab these developments are setting the stage for a second generation green revolution unlike the first green revolution any new growth in agricultural productivity will be based on improving institutional and socioeconomic setups for the purpose of enhancing resource use efficiency this second generation revolution will not push modern inputs as a strategy growth in productivity will depend on the efficient use of these inputs this article investigates the constraints on the second generation green revolution by quantifying the causes of resource use inefficiency and variation in input use in agriculture a case study is presented describing socioeconomic conditions institutional setting and physical environment in two representative rice growing villages in the pakistan punjab and their role in formulating the farmers productionrelated characteristics and farm management practices in the sequence

long run profit functions for multiproduct firms a long run specification of the multiproduct profit function is developed from the restricted profit function the multiproduct restricted profit function and the envelope condition are used to estimate the optimal long run levels of the quasi fixed factor formulas for long run marshallian elasticities of substitution and transformation economies of scope product specific and overall economies of scale and economic measures of capacity utilization are developed for the translog functional form the methodology is illustrated by a case study of the new england otter trawl industry

profit efficiency among bangladeshi rice farmers abstract production inefficiency is usually analyzed by its three components technical allocative and scale efficiency in this study we provide a direct measure of production efficiency of the bangladeshi rice farmers using a stochastic profit frontier and inefficiency effects model the data which are for 1996 include seven conventional inputs and several other background factors affecting production of modern or high yielding varieties hyvs of rice spread across 21 villages in three agro ecological regions of bangladesh the results show that there are high levels of inefficiency in modern rice cultivation the mean level of profit efficiency is 77 suggesting that an estimated 23 of the profit is lost due to a combination of technical allocative and scale inefficiency in modern rice production the efficiency differences are explained largely by infrastructure soil fertility experience extension services tenancy and share of non agricultural income

frontier production functions and technical efficiency a survey of empirical applications in agricultural economics abstract the modelling and estimation of frontier production functions has been an important area of econometric research during the last two decades forsund lovell and schmidt 1980 and schmidt 1986 present reviews of the concepts and models involved and cite some of the empirical applications which had appeared to their respective times of publication this paper seeks to update the econometric modelling of frontier production functions associated with the estimation of technical efficiency of individual firms a survey of empirical applications in agricultural economics is an important part of the paper

fishing revenue productivity and product choice in the alaskan pollock fishery a key element in evaluating fishery management strategies is examining their effects on the economic performance of fishery participants yet nearly all empirical studies of fisheries focus exclusively on the amount of fish harvested the economic benefits derived from fish stocks involve the amount of revenue generated from fish processing which is linked to both the way fish are harvested and the products produced from the fish in this study we econometrically estimate a flexible revenue function for catcher processor vessels operating in the alaskan pollock fishery recognizing potential endogeneity and a variety of fishing inputs and conditions we find significant own price supply responses and product substitutability and enhanced revenues from increased fishing days and tow duration after a regulatory change introduced property rights through a new fishing cooperative we also find significant growth in economic productivity or higher revenues over time after controlling for observed productive factors and price changes which exceeds that attributable to increased harvest these patterns suggest that the move to rights based management has contributed significantly to economic performance in the pollock fishery

multi output nonfrontier primal measures of capacity and capacity utilization this article implements an econometric approach for generating primal capacity output and utilization measures for fisheries in situations where regulatory environmental and resource conditions affect catch levels but are not independently identified in the data frontier based capacity models may interpret such impacts as production inefficiency however if such inefficiencies are unlikely to be eliminated the implied potential output increases may be unrealistic we develop a multi output multi input stochastic transformation function framework that permits various assumptions about how output composition may change when operating at full capacity we apply our model to catcher processor vessels in the alaskan pollock fishery

firm size and technical efficiency applications of production frontiers to indian survey data abstract this paper is an empirical investigation of the relationship between relative technical efficiency and firm size in four indian manufacturing industries a frontier translog production function is used to derive measures of technical inefficiency at the enterprise level given the properties of the estimated production frontier these indices of technical efficiency are also indices of total factor productivity tfp which is the single most widely accepted measure of productive efficiency variations in technical efficiency are correlated with several explanatory variables including size of firm firm size is found to be positively associated with relative productive efficiency in only one of the four industries

the dynamic efficiency costs of common pool resource exploitation we conduct the first empirical investigation of common pool resource users dynamic and strategic behavior at the micro level using real world data fishermen s strategies in a fully dynamic game account for latent resource dynamics and other players actions revealing the profit structure of the fishery we compare the fishermen s actual and socially optimal exploitation paths under a time specific vessel allocation policy and find a sizable dynamic externality individual fishermen respond to other users by exerting effort above the optimal level early in the season congestion is costly instantaneously but is beneficial in the long run because it partially offsets dynamic inefficiencies jel d24 q21 q22

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

improving the speed of adoption of agricultural technologies and farm performance through farmer groups evidence from the great lakes region of africa the article examines the effect of membership in farmer groups mfg on adoption lag of agricultural technologies and farm performance in burundi the democratic republic of congo and rwanda we use duration and stochastic production frontier models on farm household data we find that the longer the duration of mfg the shorter the adoption lag and much more so if combined with extension service delivery farmer groups function as an important mechanism for improving farm productivity through reduced technical inefficiency in input use we discuss policy implications under which farmer groups are a useful channel to reduce adoption lag and the means through which improved farm performance can be achieved

productive efficiency of specialty and conventional coffee farmers in costa rica accounting for technological heterogeneity and self selection a steep decline in coffee prices at the producer level led to considerable pressure for farmers in costa rica and producer countries all over the world one possible reaction was moving to specialty markets where price pressure was perceived to be lower we use original survey data from 2002 2003 and 2003 2004 to analyze the factors influencing participation in specialty markets and to estimate separate production functions for specialty and conventional coffee farmers allowing for farm specific inefficiencies applying a sample selection framework we find significant selection bias in the sub sample of specialty farmers and evidence for the overestimation of efficiency if this bias is not adequately controlled for among the most important factors that influence farm specific efficiency levels in the two sub samples are the availability of additional income activities experience in coffee cultivation and membership in cooperatives based on the results we derive policy recommendations to improve farmers production performance and ability to cope with the effects of the coffee crisis these policy measures include the provision of extension services with respect to farm management skills the creation of income opportunities in rural areas and the support of farmer owned cooperatives

standards as a new form of social contract sustainability initiatives in the coffee industry abstract in the former age of national capitalism the achievement of market fairness was embedded in a normative framework generated by government labor unions and perhaps religious authority in the current age of global capitalism new actors such as ngos industry associations and public private partnerships provide the normative framework that corporations use for social legitimacy in this context standard setting processes operate as new forms of social contract where the state rather than being directly involved between the parties provides a form of basic guarantee while more or less accountable ngos and firms are in charge of hammering out the bargains this article examines the dynamics of this new configuration through the case study of sustainability initiatives in the coffee sector it addresses four questions 1 are these standards effective in communicating information and creating new markets 2 to what extent do they embed elements of collective and private interests 3 is sustainability content actually delivered to their intended beneficiaries and 4 what is the role of public policy in addressing their shortcomings

the drivers of foreign direct investment into research and development an empirical investigation this paper examines the determinants of foreign direct investment fdi in research and development laboratories by 32 multinational enterprises in the pharmaceutical and electronics industries the paper applies a dichotomous set of motives for fdi results from an econometric analysis of 136 laboratory investments show that relative market size and relative strength of a country s science base determine whether fdi in research and development is carried out in order to exploit existing firm specific advantages or in order to build up new firm specific advantages this holds true in similar form for japanese european and u s firms and across the two industries

application of the distance function to nonmarket valuation of environmental goods and services an illustrative example abstract this paper develops and implements a unique formulation of a household production model in that technology is characterized as a distance function the properties of the distance function allow for the derivation of shadow prices for the inputs and outputs associated with household production which can be applied to the problem of valuing nonmarket goods or activities the approach requires only one input to or output of household production to bear a price the derivation of shadow prices for all other household inputs outputs follows from the properties of the distance function i demonstrate the approach using data on the waste management activities of a sample of households from marietta georgia and by calculating shadow prices for the nonmarket activity of recycling

collective agricultural production a solution for transition economies abstract the paper examines theoretical reasons and provides examples for productivity differences between agricultural service cooperatives and collectives service cooperatives can utilize economies of scale enhance competitiveness and provide technical information advantages that often outweighed problems of free riding low investment and excessive political intervention agricultural collectives while not adding substantial advantages are in addition associated with problems of supervision and effort supply tendencies to substitute casual workers or mechanization for regular members and low investment incentives while collective forms of organization in transition economies respond to high risk and market imperfections they do so inefficiently policies that create conditions for service cooperatives to compete may lead to large productivity gains