productivity in swedish electricity retail distribution this paper examines productivity growth in electricity retail distribution in sweden in a multiple output multiple input framework the approach used is nonparametric data envelopment analysis dea productivity is measured by means of the malmquist index productivity comparisons are made between different types of ownership and between different service areas the study indicates a high rate of productivity growth due to economies of density when measured over a period of 17 years the results show no significant differences in productivity growth between different types of ownership or economic organization

do relative income and income inequality affect consumptionq evidence from the villages of rural china abstract this article examines how a household s consumption rate is affected by its relative income and income inequality within a community based on the theory of social status seeking in consumption we test hypotheses related to these factors using a unique panel data set of rural households in china observed within a few hundred villages between 2003 and 2006 we find that the household s consumption rate is negatively related to the relative income position after controlling for the absolute income and positively related to the income inequality of the village we confirm these with different measurements of relative position

a note on the malmquist productivity index in recent years the malmquist index has gained in popularity as a measure of productivity change we demonstrate that in the presence of non constant returns to scale the malmquist productivity index does not accurately measure productivity change the bias is systematic and depends on the magnitude of scale economies

marriage meets the joneses relative income identity and marital status abstract this paper investigates the effect of relative income on marriage accounting flexibly for absolute income the ratio between a man s income and a local reference group median is a strong predictor of marital status but only for low income men relative income affects marriage even among those living with a partner a 10 percent higher reference group income is associated with a 2 percent reduction in marriage we propose an identity model to explain the results

long run relationship between output capital labour and productivity in emerging market economies long run relationship between the variables involved in the production function is an issue that is important particularly in developing countries as the neoclassical production function is best suited for developed countries and its applicability to developing countries is questionable in various ways this motivates us to do this based on time series analysis taking indian textile industry as an example which is currently at its crucial stage as a critical industry in an emerging economy with the phasing out of multi fibre arrangement in 2005 this study documents existence of cointegration between capital and output negative impact of employment shocks on output changes substitutability between changes in capital and labour negative effect of shocks to changes in capital stock on productivity and negative effect of employment shocks on future productivity these results are in line with the general perceptions about this industry and with the standard neoclassical propositions as explained in t

beef sector re structuring after agenda 2000 an irish example abstract the reforms of the beef sector that resulted from agenda 2000 are the most comprehensive for any commodity price support is reduced and the drop in revenue from the market is compensated by an increase in direct payments in this paper two integrated modelling approaches are used to produce projections for the sector that incorporate both agricultural policy changes and the evolving macroeconomic environment using the example of ireland it is projected that these changes will result in a restructuring of the beef sector in ireland which will have consequences for both farming and related industries and therefore for rural development as a whole

production technologies and technical efficiency evidence from portuguese manufacturing industry this paper aims to test whether a given type of process innovation namely flexible production technologies fpts contributes to increased firm efficiency using one year firm data from the portuguese manufacturing industry and applying a parametric stochastic frontier approach individual technical efficiencies are obtained and their determinants simultaneously estimated using a single step procedure recently proposed by battese and coelli 1995 the results support the hypothesis that technological flexibility measured through the use of fpts is important in explaining differences in efficiency furthermore given the specifications of the stochastic frontier function the null hypothesis that portuguese firms are fully technically efficient is rejected

efficiency analysis for exogenously fixed inputs and outputs we evaluate by means of mathematical programming formulations the relative technical and scale efficiencies of decision making units dmus when some of the inputs or outputs are exogenously fixed and beyond the discretionary control of dmu managers this approach further develops the work on efficiency evaluation and on estimation of efficient production frontiers known as data envelopment analysis dea we also employ the model to provide efficient input and output targets for dmu managers in a way that specifically accounts for the fixed nature of some of the inputs or outputs we illustrate the approach using real data for a network of fast food restaurants

nonparametric analysis of technical pure technical and scale efficiencies for food crop production in east java indonesia abstract nonparametric analysis of technical efficiency for irrigated farms in the madiun regency in the west central part of east java indonesia is conducted using linear programming techniques this procedure allows the relative technical efficiency for each farm to be determined and for inefficiencies to be decomposed into pure technical inefficiency and scale inefficiency and does not require restrictions or assumptions regarding functional form to be placed on the data farmers in madiun generally are efficient relative to each other farmers operating inefficiently do so more often because of scale inefficiencies rather than pure technical inefficiencies a majority of the farms operate in the region of decreasing returns to scale rather than increasing returns to scale farmer age the level of diversification of cropping activities and high school education were found to be related to technical efficiency in the rainy season under irrigated conditions other socioeconomic factors were not statistically significant the results imply that inefficient farms use excessive levels of inputs particularly nitrogen fertilizer this is perhaps due to the lingering effects of past input subsidization policies particularly of fertilizers in indonesia or to risk reducing behavior the results also imply that current government policies to encourage diversification of cropping practices in java may lead to greater technical inefficiencies in production in addition extension education targeted to younger farmers with low levels of formal education would improve efficiency

effect of public subsidies on farm technical efficiency a meta analysis of empirical results abstractinvestigating the impact of public subsidies on farm technical efficiency is becoming a critical issue in applied agricultural policy analysis this article presents a meta analysis of empirical results on this issue based on data gathered from a systematic literature review we find that in the empirical literature subsidies are commonly negatively associated with farm technical efficiency meta regression estimation results show that the direction significantly negative significantly positive or non significant of the observed effects is sensitive to the way subsidies are modelled in the empirical studies

price protection and productivity growth this study provides empirical evidence on the relationship between price protection and productivity growth from theoretical considerations it is concluded that the impact of price protection on productivity growth is ambiguous although protectionism may in some instances stimulate investment and adoption of new technologies efficiency may decrease particularly when farm prices and income are high empirical evidence from the new zealand beef sheep industry indicates that high protection during the 1975 85 period produced negative productivity growth following market liberalization in 1985 productivity growth increased substantially

price transmission in the spanish bovine sector the bse effect a regime switching vector error correction model is applied to monthly price data to assess the impact of bovine spongiform encephalopathy bse outbreaks on price relationships and patterns of transmission among farm and retail markets for bovines in spain to evaluate the degree to which price transmission is affected by bse food scares a bse food scare index is developed and used to determine regime switching results suggest that bse scares affect beef producers and retailers differently consumer prices are found to be weakly exogenous and not found to react to bse scares while producer prices are conversely adjusted the magnitude of the adjustment is found to depend on the magnitude of the bse scare

effects of farm size education and off farm income on productive efficiency of dairy farmers in utah a stochasitc frontier approach this study is primarily concerned with investigating the technical allocative and scale inefficiency of owner operators of dairy farms in utah a stochastic production frontier has been applied to analyze these inefficiencies the results indicate that there is positive association between years of education and productivity of labor and capital productivity is also found to be negatively related to off farm income regarding the effects of farm size on efficiency it is found that large farms are the most efficient of all sizes considered separate estimates of technical allocative and scale inefficiencies indicate that large and medium sized farms are technically more efficient than small farms large farms on average are found to be performing much better than medium sized and small farms so far as allocative and scale inefficiency are concerned copyright 1989 by mit press

technical efficiency and productivity of maize producers in eastern ethiopia a study of farmers within and outside the sasakawa global 2000 project abstract this paper investigates the technical efficiency of two samples of maize producers in eastern ethiopia one involving farmers within the sasakawa global 2000 project and the other involving farmers outside this program the study uses stochastic frontier production functions in which the technical inefficiency effects are assumed to be functions of the age and education of the farmers together with the time spent by extension advisers in assisting farmers in their agricultural production operations for the cross sectional data obtained for the 1995 96 agricultural year cobb douglas stochastic frontiers are found to be adequate representations of the data given the specifications of the translog stochastic frontiers for farmers within and outside the project the empirical results indicate that farmers within the sg 2000 project are more technically efficient than farmers outside the project relative to their respective technologies the mean frontier output of maize for farmers within the sg 2000 project is significantly greater than that for the farmers outside the project

industrial districts old wine in new bottles harrison b 1992 industrial districts old wine in new bottles reg studies 26 469 483 according to the theory of industrial districts a new wave of economic growth is being led in a number of regions in europe north america and east asia by spatially concentrated networks of mostly small and medium sized enterprises often using flexible production technology and characterized by extensive local interfirm linkages does this amount to a re emergence of the dominance of what urban and regional economists call agglomeration economies over the well known pressures on business to spatially disperse its operations neoclassical economic theorizing from marshall to perroux provides one perspective on the contemporary industrial district phenomenon another is afforded by granovetter s more recent elaboration of the ideas of embedding under and over socialization confronting each of these theoretical approaches with the other leads me to conclude that the industrial district prototypes involv

technical allocative and economic efficiencies in swine production in hawaii a comparison of parametric and nonparametric approaches abstract technical allocative and economic efficiency measures are derived for a sample of swine producers in hawaii using the parametric stochastic efficiency decomposition technique and nonparametric data envelopment analysis dea efficiency measures obtained from the two frontier approaches are compared firm specific factors affecting productive efficiencies are also analyzed finally swine producers potential for reducing cost through improved efficiency is also examined under the specification of variable returns to scale vrs the mean technical allocative and economic efficiency indices are 75 9 75 8 and 57 1 respectively for the parametric approach and 75 9 80 3 and 60 3 for dea while for the constant returns to scale crs they are 74 5 73 9 and 54 7 respectively for the parametric approach and 64 3 71 4 and 45 7 for dea thus the results from both approaches reveal considerable inefficiencies in swine production in hawaii the removal of potential outliers increases the technical efficiencies in the parametric approach and allocative efficiencies in dea but overall contrary to popular belief the results obtained from dea are found to be more robust than those from the parametric approach the estimated mean technical and economic efficiencies obtained from the parametric technique are higher than those from dea for crs models but quite similar for vrs models while allocative efficiencies are generally higher in dea however the efficiency rankings of the sample producers based on the two approaches are highly correlated with the highest correlation being achieved for the technical efficiency rankings under crs based on mean comparison and rank correlation analyses the return to scale assumption is found to be crucial in assessing the similarities or differences in efficiency measures obtained from the two approaches analysis of the role of various firm specific factors on productive efficiency shows that farm size has strong positive effects on efficiency levels similarly farms producing market hogs are more efficient than those producing feeder pigs based on these results by operating at the efficient frontier the sample swine producers would be able to reduce their production costs by 38 46 depending upon the method and returns to scale considered

generating efficiency economic and environmental regulation of public and private electricity generators in spain abstract economic regulation of firms with market power has placed increasing emphasis on incentive based regulation such as price caps we focus on the effect of regulation as distinct from ownership and identify the effect of two different regulatory schemes on both publicly and privately owned spanish electricity generators publicly owned generators were more efficient under cost of service regulation private but not public firms responded to incentive regulation by increasing efficiency bringing their productivity to similar levels we introduce some novelty in modelling efficiency including three pollutants and declared plant availability as outputs and we test for the effect of environmental regulation in reducing pollutants

the origins and dynamics of production networks in silicon valley abstract computer systems firms in silicon valley are responding to rising costs of product development shorter product cycles and rapid technological change by focusing and building partnerships with suppliers both within and outside of the region well known firms like hewlett packard and apple computers and lesser known ones like silicon graphics and pyramid technology are organized to combine the components and sub systems made by specialist suppliers into new computer systems as these firms collaborate to both define and manufacture new systems they are institutionalizing their capacity to learn from one another three cases a contract manufacturer a silicon foundry and the joint development of a microprocessor illustrate how inter firm networks help account for the sustained technological dynamism of the regional economy

comparing malmquist and hicks moorsteen productivity indices exploring the impact of unbalanced vs balanced panel data abstract we explore the effect of balancing unbalanced panel data when estimating primal productivity indices using non parametric frontier estimators first we list a series of pseudo solutions aimed at making an unbalanced panel balanced then we discuss some intermediate solutions e g balancing 2 years by 2 years furthermore we link this problem with a variety of literatures on infeasibilities statistical inference of non parametric frontier estimators and the index theory literature focusing on the dynamics of entry and exit in industries we then empirically illustrate these issues comparing both malmquist and hicks moorsteen productivity indices on two data sets in particular we test for the differences in distribution when comparing balanced and unbalanced results for a given index and when comparing malmquist and hicks moorsteen productivity indices for a given type of data set the latter tests are crucial in answering the question to which extent the malmquist index can approximate the hicks moorsteen index that has a total factor productivity tfp interpretation finally we draw up a list of remaining issues that could benefit from further exploration

do positional goods inhibit saving evidence from a life cycle experiment abstract we investigate the effect of positional goods goods for which one s consumption relative to others matters on saving based on results from a life cycle consumption saving experiment in a group treatment we allow inter personal comparisons by assigning subjects to groups and displaying rankings based partly on consumption a baseline individual treatment is similar but without the additional information we find more under saving saving less than the optimal amount and lower money earnings for subjects in the group treatment both effects are economically relevant with magnitudes of roughly 6 7 of expected income and 7 8 of average earnings respectively additional analysis shows that the result is driven by those subjects who are not ranked in the top three in their group keeping up with the joneses and males in particular

social status in economic theory social distinction or status is an important motivation of human behaviour this paper provides a selective survey of recent advances in the economic analysis of the origins and consequences of social status concerns first a selection of empirical research from a variety of scientific disciplines is discussed to underpin the further theoretical analysis i then consider the origins and determinants of tastes for status discuss the endogenous derivation of such preferences for relative standing and assess the different formalizations of these preferences subsequently the consequences of preferences for status are studied for a variety of problems and settings the last section discusses a number of implications of status concerns for normative economics and public policy

the spanish beef sector in the 1990s impact of the bse crisis on efficiency and profitability the beef sector has undergone a series of changes as a result of successive food scares and agricultural policy reforms the purpose of the paper is to analyse technical efficiency and profitability in spanish livestock enterprises during the 1990s focusing on the possible impact of the bse crisis and the 1992 cap reform on each of these variables the main findings reveal the existence of technical inefficiency during the sample period some factors have a positive impact others a negative impact on efficiency as far as the effects of cap reform and the bse crisis are concerned the results show the ineffectiveness of agricultural policy regulation to promote efficiency in the sector and the improvement in the efficiency as a consequence of the bse crisis the profitability analysis reveals the importance of direct subsidies however in their absence a large percentage of holdings is unable to remunerate either own or rented factors analysis shows therefore that there are two counteracting effec

efficiency of educational production an analysis of new york school districts theoretical consideration of technical efficiency has existed since tjalling c koopmans 1951 which defined technical efficiency for production possibilities for which it is impossible to increase any output without simultaneously increasing any input the nonparametric approach to efficiency estimation is based not on this definition but rather on michael j farrell s 1957 index even after farrell efficiency is achieved there may exist additional slack in individual inputs implying that farrell efficiency doesn t measure inefficiency to solve this problem this paper suggests incorporating programming results into a second stage multivariate regression analysis for illustrative purposes this technique is applied to analyze new york state school districts copyright 1996 by mit press

analysing the technical efficiency of the spanish football league first division with a random frontier model this article analyses technical efficiency of football clubs in the spanish football league division 1 primera liga from the seasons 1995 1996 to 2004 2005 with an unbalanced panel data the random frontier model is used allowing the identification of random variables in the cost frontier it is concluded that the price of capital investment the number of points won and attendance are heterogeneous variables therefore no common public policy aiming to improve efficiency can embrace all of the clubs so that policies by clusters are required

provision of environmental output within a multi output distance function approach this paper redefines technical efficiency by incorporating provision of environmental goods as one of the outputs of the farm the proportion of permanent and rough grassland to total agricultural land area is used as a proxy for the provision of environmental goods stochastic frontier analysis was conducted using a bayesian procedure the methodology is applied to panel data on 215 dairy farms in england and wales results show that farm efficiency rankings change when provision of environmental outputs by farms is incorporated in the efficiency analysis which may have important political implications

stochastic models and variable returns to scales in data envelopment analysis stochastic data envelopment analysis dea models were developed by taking random disturbances into account for the possibility of variations in input output data structure the stochastic efficiency measure of a decision making unit dmu is defined via joint probabilistic comparisons of inputs and outputs with other dmus and can be characterized by solving a chance constrained programming problem deterministic equivalents are derived for both situations of multivariate symmetric random disturbances and a single random factor in the production relationships an analysis of stochastic variable returns to scale is developed

production with storable and durable inputs nonparametric analysis of intertemporal efficiency abstract we propose a nonparametric methodology for intertemporal production analysis that accounts for durable as well as storable inputs durable inputs contribute to the production outputs in multiple consecutive periods storable inputs are non durable and can be stored in inventories for use in future periods we explicitly model the possibility that firms use several vintages of the durable inputs i e they invest in new durables and scrap older durables over time furthermore we allow for production delays of durable inputs and storage costs for storable inputs we characterize production behavior that is dynamically cost efficient which allows us to evaluate the efficiency of observed production decisions for cost inefficient behavior we propose a measure to quantify the degree of inefficiency an attractive feature of this measure is that it can be decomposed in period specific cost inefficiencies we demonstrate the usefulness of our methodology through an application to the italian manufacturing sector of fabricated metal products over the period 1995 2007 drawn from the amadeus dataset

estimating input mix efficiency in a parametric framework application to state level agricultural data for the united states this paper contributes to the productivity literature by demonstrating novel econometric methods to estimate input mix efficiency ime in a parametric framework input mix efficiency is defined as

the influence of management characteristics on the technical efficiency of wheat farmers in eastern england technical efficiency of wheat farms in eastern england is measured through the estimation of a stochastic frontier production function using panel data for the 1993 1997 crop years variations in the technical efficiency index across production units are explained through a number of managerial and farm characteristic variables following battese and coelli 1995 empirical econ 20 325 332 and incorporating the spirit of rougoor et al 1998 agric econ 18 261 272 the technical efficiency index across production units ranges from 62 to 98 the objectives of maximising annual profits and maintaining the environment are positively correlated with and have the largest influence on technical efficiency moreover those farmers who seek information have more years of managerial experience and have a large farm are also associated with higher levels of technical efficiency future studies that seek to explain variation in technical efficiency should include further aspects of the managerial decision making process

aggregation of malmquist productivity indexes allowing for reallocation of resources in this paper we consider aggregate malmquist productivity index measures which allow inputs to be reallocated within the group when in output orientation this merges the single period aggregation results allowing input reallocation of nesterenko and zelenyuk 2007 with the aggregate malmquist productivity index results of zelenyuk 2006 to determine aggregate malmquist productivity indexes that are justified by economic theory consistent with previous aggregation results and which maintain analogous decompositions to the original measures such measures are of direct relevance to firms or countries who have merged making input reallocation possible allowing them to measure potential productivity gains and how these have been realised or not over time

wages seniority and the demand for rising consumption profiles abstract in many occupations wages rise faster than productivity over the life cycle other authors have suggested a variety of explanations for this pattern we argue that these explanations fail for at least two occupations commercial airline pilots and intercity bus drivers we then explore an alternative explanation based on the assumption that satisfaction depends on not only the level of consumption but also its rate of change we argue that upward sloping wage profiles are an expedient substitute for personal savings as a means for achieving upward sloping consumpion profiles

the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning for the bse crisis abstract the bse crisis raises doubts about the sustainability of current levels and patterns of beef production in northern ireland a region with a heavy dependence on exports this paper employs a regional input output model to determine the full effects of a permanent fall in export demand for beef on regional output income and employment in farming and the wider economy the scenario examined which assumed the withdrawal of intervention buying illustrates the dependence of the beef industry on bse triggered market stabilisation measures without which more than 5000 jobs and 68 million in income would be threatened the countervailing effects of possible increases in demand for beef substitutes are shown to offer relatively limited opportunities for employment 600 jobs and 9 million in income in view of the extent of the dislocation caused by bse in the regional economy it is concluded that rather than try to sustain the existing pattern of production with the present mix of support measures additional agricultural and rural development policy responses are required the logical aim of the new measures should be to promote structural adjustment in the beef sector thus enhancing competitiveness by improving underlying regional comparative advantage in beef production and processing

life cycle individual thrift and the wealth of nations this paper provides a review of the theory of the determinants of individual and national thrift that has come to be known as the life cycle hypothesis lch of saving applications to some current policy issues are also discussed part i deals with the state of the art on the eve of the formulation of the lch some 30 years ago part ii sets forth the theoretical foundations of the model in its original formulation and later amendment calling attention to various implications distinctive to it and sometimes counter intuitive it also includes a review of a number of crucial empirical tests both at the individual and the aggregate level part iii reviews some applications of lch to current policy issues though only in sketchy fashion as space constraints prevent fuller discussion this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

are wages habit forming evidence from micro data although utility functions play a central role in economics the axiom that utility depends only on the absolute levels of its arguments is rarely tested this paper uses panel data on 2000 british employees who remain with the same employer and who are not promoted from one wave to the next it is shown that one important measure of well being overall job satisfaction is strongly positively correlated with the change in the worker s pay between waves but is unrelated to the current level of pay empirical tests suggest that a reference dependent satisfaction function where individual well being depends on current pay relative to past pay is more consistent with these regression results than are productivity or agency explanations of increasing wage profiles some evidence is presented of greater job satisfaction effects of pay rises for lower paid less well educated and younger workers these results provide some micro evidence consistent with the theory widespread in social science of habituation individuals may become used to any given level of consumption or income as such they tie in with the finding that a country s well being as measured by the average happiness of its citizens is only weakly correlated with its per capita gnp

an evaluation of the efficiency of quebec s school boards using the data envelopment analysis method in this paper the efficiency of quebec s school boards during a period of severe cutbacks in their finance is examined using data envelopment analysis the average efficiency is found to be relatively high in spite of this potential savings could be achieved if school boards were fully efficient results were found to depend heavily on school boards socio economic conditions thus they were subjected to tobit analysis and the boards corrected efficiencies recalculated it is concluded that inefficiencies cost 800 million dollars of which 200 million dollars come from unfavourable socio economic conditions

is agricultural productivity in developing countries really shrinking new evidence using a modified nonparametric approach abstract nonparametric productivity analyses performed to date show that most developing countries are experiencing relatively rapid technical regress in agriculture we discuss the plausibility of these results and argue that they stem from the existence of biased technical change and the definition of technology used we reestimate the malmquist index for a group of developing countries using a different definition of technology and find that most developing countries in our sample are experiencing positive productivity growth with technical change being the main source of this growth

efficiency productivity gains and the size of brazilian supermarkets abstract the supermarket sector is an important segment of the brazilian economy in recent years the role of large retailers and market globalization has transformed this sector in one of the most competitive in the country this paper aims to evaluate the technical efficiency and scale of the brazilian supermarket sector through bootstrap data envelopment analysis and to measure changes in productivity from 2005 to 2012 applying the bootstrapped malmquist index a second stage analysis is performed to explain efficiency levels and productivity gains in terms of supermarket chains characteristics we found that the brazilian supermarket chains have low average efficiency levels and in general there was an increase in productivity in the period the consolidations that took place in this sector can be explained in terms of scales of operation small supermarket chains had lower efficiency levels both in 2005 and 2012 but experienced higher levels of productivity growth in the period results of second stage analysis shows that some supermarket chains characteristics are correlated to productivity gains

decomposing the luenberger hicks moorsteen total factor productivity indicator an application to u s agriculture abstract this paper introduces a decomposition of the additively complete luenberger hicks moorsteen total factor productivity indicator into the usual components technical change technical inefficiency change and scale inefficiency change our approach is general in that it does not require differentiability or convexity of the production technology using a nonparametric framework the empirical application focuses on the agricultural sector at the state level in the u s over the period 1960 2004 the results show that luenberger hicks moorsteen productivity increased substantially in the considered period this productivity growth is due to output growth rather than input decline although the extent depends on the convexity assumption of the technology technical change is the main driver while the role of technical inefficiency change and scale inefficiency change also depends on the convexity assumption of the technology

efficiency in new zealand sheep and beef farming the impacts of regulatory reform in this study we consider the impacts of dramatic regulatory reform during the 1980s on the efficiency of farms in new zealand using unbalanced panel data a translog distance function representing the multiple output and input technology and incorporating nonneutral regulatory impacts is used for the analysis determinants of technical inefficiency including a regulatory variable a time term and a debt equity ratio are also incorporated in a one step model estimated by maximum likelihood stochastic production frontier methods we find evidence of regulatory induced changes in output composition toward beef and deer and away from wool and especially lamb but little associated technical inefficiency these patterns motivated investment in complementary capital land and beef deer livestock inputs firms that were more flexible in their adaptation toward these new mixes adjusted to regulatory changes with less upheaval so any existing inefficiency appears linked to debt equity levels

malmquist indices of productivity growth during the deregulation of norwegian banking 1980 89 productivity growth during the deregulation of the norwegian banking industry is studied within the framework of data envelopment analysis which explicitly allows for multiple outputs introducing malmquist indices for productivity growth total growth can be decomposed into frontier growth and change in each bank s distance to the frontier both the total growth index and its components can be consistently chained over time we find productivity regress at the average bank prior to the deregulation but rapid growth when deregulation took place deregulation also led to less dispersion of productivity levels within the industry

the empirical identification of heterogeneous technologies and technical change when different technologies are present in an industry we assume that a homogeneous technology will lead to misleading implications about technical change and inefficient policy recommendations in this article a latent class modelling approach and flexible estimation of the production structure is used to distinguish different technologies for a representative sample of eu dairy producers as an industry exhibiting significant structural changes and differences in production systems in the past decades the model uses a transformation function to recognize multiple outputs separate technological classes based on multiple characteristics a flexible generalized linear functional form a variety of inputs and random effects to capture firm heterogeneity and measures of first and second order elasticities to represent technical change and biases we find that if multiple production frontiers are embodied in the data different firms exhibit different output or input intensities and changes associated wi

productivity measurement in radial dea models with a single constant input abstract we consider productivity measurement based on radial dea models with a single constant input we show that in this case the malmquist and the hicks moorsteen productivity indices coincide and are multiplicatively complete the choice of orientation of the malmquist index for the measurement of productivity change does not matter and there is a unique decomposition of productivity change containing two independent sources namely technical efficiency change and technical change technical change decomposes in an infinite number of ways into a radial magnitude effect and an output bias effect we also show that the aggregate productivity index is given by the geometric mean between any two periods of the simple arithmetic averages of the individual contemporaneous and mixed period distance functions

a cost malmquist productivity index this paper develops a productivity index applicable when producers are cost minimisers and input prices are known the index is inspired by the malmquist index as extended to productivity measurement the index developed here is defined in terms of input cost rather than input quantity distance functions hence productivity change is decomposed into overall efficiency and cost technical change furthermore overall efficiency change is decomposed into technical and allocative efficiency change and cost technical change into a part capturing shifts of input quantities and shifts of relative input prices these decompositions provide a clearer picture of the root sources of productivity change they are illustrated here in a sample of hospitals results are computed using non parametric mathematical programming 2003 elsevier b v all rights reserved

savings and nutrition at low incomes while many development theorists assume saving propensities vary among different groups there has been limited theoretical justification for this view this paper analyzes two complementary theories stressing the effect on saving of physiological consequences of poor nutrition at low incomes one influence is on the probability of survival another is on workers productivity either effect means that the average propensity to save can rise with income issues considered include annuities exogenous changes in survival and efficiency implications for the efficiency wage theory of unemployment and distinctions between wage and nonwage income implications of nutritional effects for econometric specification of saving functions are stressed

total factor productivity growth in agriculture a malmquist index analysis of 93 countries 1980 2000 in this paper we examine levels and trends in agricultural output and productivity in 93 developed and developing countries that account for a major portion of the world population and agricultural output we make use of data drawn from the food and agriculture organization of the united nations and our study covers the period 1980 2000 due to the non availability of reliable input price data the study uses data envelopment analysis dea to derive malmquist productivity indexes the study examines trends in agricultural productivity over the period issues of catch up and convergence or in some cases possible divergence in productivity in agriculture are examined within a global framework the paper also derives the shadow prices and value shares that are implicit in the dea based malmquist productivity indices and examines the plausibility of their levels and trends over the study period

on two definitions of productivity abstract caves et al in 1982 introduced a productivity measure that does not proceed from a continuous timer presentation they named these indexes after sten malmquist who in 1953 used ratios of distance functions to formulate quantity indexes in the consumer context in a later paper diewert proposed an alternative definition of productivity also based on distance functions which he attributed to hicks and moorsteen in this letter we provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the malmquist productivity index to equal the hicks moorsteen index

dairy farm efficiency measurement using stochastic frontiers and neoclassical duality this paper presents a stochastic efficiency decomposition model based on kopp and diewert s deterministic methodology the stochastic model is used to analyze technical economic and allocative efficiency for a sample of new england dairy farms the results suggest that mean economic efficiency for the farmers in the sample is about 70 and that on average there is little difference between technical 83 0 and allocative 84 6 efficiency analyses of the relationship between efficiency and four socioeconomic variables farm size education extension and experience reveal that despite some statistically significant associations efficiency levels are not markedly affected by these variables

productivity technical and efficiency change in singapore s services sector 2005 to 2008 the current study was motivated by statements made by the economic strategies committee that singapore s recent productivity levels in services were well below countries such as the us japan and hong kong massive employment of foreign workers was cited as the reason for poor productivity levels to shed more light on singapore s falling productivity a nonparametric malmquist productivity index was employed which provides measures of productivity change technical change and efficiency change the findings reveal that growth in total factor productivity tfp was attributed to technical change with no improvement in efficiency change such results suggest that gains from tfp were input driven rather than from a best practice approach such as improvements in operations or better resource allocation

decomposing productivity indexes into explanatory factors abstract productivity measures are increasingly regarded as key indicators of economic performance identifying sources of productivity growth is of interest to both firms and policy makers this paper revisits the debate on how to decompose productivity growth into explanatory factors with a focus on extracting technical progress technical efficiency change and returns to scale components using bjurek s concept of the malmquist index introduced into production theory in a systematic way by caves christensen and diewert a reference technology is required to define the components of interest unlike other approaches ours do not make any convexity assumptions on the reference technology but instead follows the example of tulkens and his coauthors in assuming that the reference technology satisfies free disposability assumptions a new decomposition of a productivity index is provided with the existence and properties of the underlying distance functions of the decomposition proven under relatively unrestrictive assumptions the paper also provides for the first time a theoretical justification for the geometric average form of the bjurek productivity index these rigorous theoretical contributions provide significant avenues for enhanced understanding of empirical productivity performance

market deregulation trade liberalization and productive efficiency in bangladesh agriculture an empirical analysis the impact of trade liberalization and of market deregulation in general on the performance of agriculture remains contentious and empirical issue in the literature following the random coefficient frontier modelling framework this paper attempts to contribute to this debate by computing the farm specific productive efficiency indices in bangladesh agriculture before and after reform it also examines the impact of some farm specific and policy variables on productive efficiency the empirical results show that there are wide variations in productive efficiency across farms and regions and the average efficiency of all regions increased modestly by 8 percentage points from the pre reform to post reform period the efficiency differentials are largely explained by farm size infrastructure households off farm income and the reduction of government anti agricultural bias in relation to trade and domestic policies the implication of these results suggests the need for further policy reform to augment p

productivity change and decomposition analysis of japanese regional economies this study examines the productivity growth and its four components for japanese regional economies by analyzing 47 prefectures for the period 1995 2012 the productivity changes are measured by th

dea environmental assessment in time horizon radial approach for malmquist index measurement on petroleum companies abstract the climate change and various pollutions have been influencing our societies and economies the environmental assessment to be discussed in this study is increasingly important because it serves as an initial step toward pollution prevention corporate leaders policy makers researchers and individuals who are interested in environmental protection have been paying attention to the assessment so that they can prepare policy suggestions on the global warming and climate change as a methodology for the assessment this study proposes a use of data environment analysis dea in a time horizon most of data sets on the climate change are sampled in a time series where the performance of organizations fluctuates every moment in applying the dea environmental assessment to such a data set it is necessary for us to classify outputs into desirable e g oil production and undesirable e g co 2 emission categories because all organizations usually produce not only desirable but also undesirable outputs as a result of their economic activities to unify the two different types of outputs this study incorporates the concept of natural and managerial disposability into the computational framework of dea and extends them into a time horizon for the research purpose this study incorporates malmquist index into the proposed dea environmental assessment to examine an occurrence of a frontier shift among multiple periods the frontier shift indicates a technology progress and or managerial innovation during an observed period the index is further separated into four subcomponents in a time horizon these subcomponents are differently expressed under the natural and managerial disposability thus eight different subcomponents on the malmquist index are proposed to measure the frontier shift as an application this study uses the proposed dea approach to examine whether the frontier shift due to technology progress occurs or not in the petroleum industry from 2005 to 2009 our empirical study finds that the industry has not exhibited any major frontier shift under natural disposability but showing a considerable frontier shift under managerial disposability in other words the petroleum firms have improved their environmental performance by eco technology to reduce an amount of co 2 emission during the observed annual periods

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

malmquist index measurement for sustainability enhancement in chinese municipalities and provinces abstract this study discusses a use of dea environmental assessment in a time horizon we use a radial approach to examine a dynamic change of index measures related to china s regional development and industrial pollution prevention in applying the proposed assessment to a time series data we need to examine components that produce a shift of an efficiency frontier in a time horizon a unique feature of the proposed assessment is that it incorporates a framework of malmquist index to examine the frontier shift among multiple periods here the frontier shift indicates a progress potential on technology development and or managerial improvement among observed periods thus it is not an efficiency measure rather the measurement eliminates inefficiency by shifting an organization to an efficiency frontier in this study the index is conceptually separated into 6 subcomponents which are further disaggregated into 12 different elements 6 subcomponents 2 disposability concepts under natural and managerial disposability concepts the proposed index measurement needs to consider a possible occurrence of a frontier crossover among different periods because technology diffusion on production activities usually has a time lag until it becomes really effective methodologically this study conveys the message that dea is an approximation method so being not perfect therefore it is necessary for us to use several different approaches e g potential improvement by measuring a frontier shift and efficiency analysis to obtain reliable empirical evidence as an application this study examines the level of sustainability related to 30 municipalities and provinces in china from 2003 to 2014 the following six policy implications are obtained in this study first all municipalities and provinces have made a considerable progress on their economies and pollution prevention efforts second the effect of the frontier crossover is limited in china because they attain a high level of their potentials on economic development and pollution prevention of course this effort is within the chinese boundary not international because this study does not compare them with other industrial nations third china needs to allocate its resources to western provinces at a level that it has used for coastal developments fourth the government should reinforce efforts on environmental protection in central and southern regions fifth the government has focused on the sustainability development in urban municipalities and provinces and then has gradually shifted the policy influence toward rural areas finally different empirical results are confirmed by the potential analysis which consists of the malmquist index measurement and the efficiency analysis both approaches need to be examined for future planning on chinese regional development

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

is there a slowdown in agricultural productivity growth in south america this article estimates agricultural productivity growth in 10 south american countries in 1969 2009 with the objective of investigating if the slowdown being measured in other countries is present in the region results show that productivity growth accounts for half of the three fold increase in agricultural output during this period and that performance is sensitive to r d investments in the sector the slowdown found for the 1990s to 2000s in the u s and some european economies does not seem to be present yet in south america the region s total factor productivity tfp growth rate increased steadily from 1 07 during the 1970s to 2 29 during the 2000s given lags in adoption and the adaptive nature of innovations in these economies we have yet to see the potential effects in south american agriculture of decreases in r d in advanced economies

the anatomy of productivity growth slowdown and recovery in canadian manufacturing 1970 79 abstract a micro database that tracks individual establishments plants in the canadian manufacturing sector through the 1970s is used to analyse the productivity growth slowdown and partial recovery that occurred over that decade the data allow us to distinguish between the performance within individual plants and structural changes such as entry and exit and intra and inter industry shifts in the distribution of output as contributing factors to changes in productivity growth the main finding is that fluctuations within plants were responsible for nearly all of the slowdown and for most of the partial recovery though the latter was also helped by a reallocation of output shares within manufacturing towards lower cost industries

dea environmental assessment in a time horizon malmquist index on fuel mix electricity and co2 of industrial nations abstract climate change and global warming become a major policy issue in the world economic activities produce not only desirable outputs e g electricity but also undesirable outputs e g co 2 emission the important policy issue is how each nation can balance between economic development and environmental protection to attain a sustainable society in attaining the sustainable society environmental assessment is increasingly important because it can serve as an initial step toward the green growth of each nation for the purpose this study proposes a new use of dea data environment analysis for environmental assessment in a time horizon the proposed use of dea incorporates malmquist index to examine the degree of a frontier shift among multiple periods the frontier shift indicates a technology progress and or managerial innovation during an observed period the index is conceptually separated into six subcomponents which are further divided into twelve different subcomponents six subcomponents two disposability concepts under the natural and managerial disposability in the index measurement it is necessary for us to consider a frontier crossover among different periods because technology innovation usually has a time lag until it really appears as an empirical application this study utilizes the proposed approach to identify the relationship among fuel mix electricity and co 2 of ten industrial nations this study finds three important empirical findings first there is a time lag in technology innovation on electricity generation and co 2 emission reduction consequently it is necessary to consider the existence of a frontier crossover in assessing the electric power industry second nuclear generation as found in france as well as hydro and renewable energy as found in netherlands are important for the development of a sustainable society although the former is associated with a very high level of risk and the latter has a limited generation capacity finally the electric power industry has been making a corporate effort to reduce the amount of co 2 emission by utilizing nuclear and renewable energy

inter firm collaboration and technology development partnerships within us manufacturing industries the paper examines the conditions under which firms enter into technology development partnerships with customers suppliers and other firms three conceptual approaches to inter firm collaboration are examined namely transactions costs theory resource strategy theories of the firm and network theory drawing upon data collected in a mailed questionnaire survey of us manufacturing establishments in the chemical electronics and instruments industries i assess empirically various determinants of inter firm collaboration in technology development the empirical work suggests that large firms and firms located in major urban centres are more likely to enter into technology development partnerships firms located in a specialized industrial agglomeration do not demonstrate a greater propensity toward entering into technology development partnerships with customers suppliers or other firms cet article cherche a examiner les conditions sous lesquelles les entreprises concluent des partenariats technolo

the malmquist total factor productivity index the definitions of the malmquist output and input quantity indexes specified by d w caves l r christensen and w e diewert 1982 are applied in this study based on these indexes a malmquist total factor productivity index is derived for general production structures the definition maintains the fundamental characteristic of a productivity index as a ratio between an output quantity change index and an input quantity change index this index provides a remedy for the shortcoming of the traditional definition of the malmquist productivity index in that the latter does not correctly measure changes in productivity in the presence of changes in returns to scale copyright 1996 by the editors of the scandinavian journal of economics

explaining efficiency differences among large german and austrian banks cost efficiency scale efficiency and productivity change are estimated by data envelopment analysis and cost efficiency is regressed on explanatory variables no evidence is found for average productivity responding to deregulation over the period studied state owned banks are found to be more cost efficient likely owing to cheaper funds and cooperative banks to be about as cost efficient as private banks increasing economies of scale but decreasing economies of scope provide rationale for m as among banks with similar product portfolios interbank and capital market funding is found to be more cost efficient than deposits when the cost of retail networks is controlled

a test of the relative income hypothesis the original permanent income and life cycle models were constructed around the view that savings rates are independent of the level of long run income 19 since then it has been well documented using household data that savings rates rise with long run income to be consistent with the empirical evidence modigliani suggests modifying the life cycle hypothesis to include a bequest motive his hypothesis however is that the share of lifetime resources that a household plans to devote to bequests is an increasing function of its lifetime resources relative to others in the same age cohort 17 the share of resources devoted to bequests is made a function of the relative and not the absolute level of resources so as to be consistent with menchik and david s empirical study of the bequest function 16 but if saving for bequests is influenced by relative income why not other forms of saving a simple model in which all types of saving are influenced by relative income was proposed by duesenberry in 1949 4 his basic hypothesis was that households are concerned about community consumption standards and that this concern leads to savings rates being an increasing function of a household s position in the income distribution although a per se desire for status is seen by some economists as inconsistent with rational behavior it is clear that a relative advantage is often instrumental in achieving absolute goals 6 7 10 11 22 while several policy implications of the relative income hypothesis have come to light 2 6 it has rarely been analyzed empirically the purpose of this paper is to present a test of the relative income model the hypothesis is that if income rank is really the variable driving savings rates then it should be possible to hold the level of income constant and still see the average propensity to save aps moving with income rank section ii presents a simple model of the savings decision in which concern for relative standing in the current consumption hierarchy is integrated into a permanent income framework the model is then used to explore the issue of functional form section iii discusses the data the equation to be estimated and the regression results section iv presents a summary and concluding remarks

the economic impact of bse a regional perspective a regional input output model detailing agriculture and its ancillary sectors is used to quantify the effects of a bse induced reduction in final demand for beef on the economy of northern ireland a region with heavy dependence on beef exports the long run regional output income and employment effects are estimated assuming no market stabilization measures and taking account of substitution effects in final demand predicted net losses in regional income are 0 5 of regional gdp with job losses of up to 0 6 of regional employment about 77 of the income losses and 87 of the job losses are in the beef sector primarily beef production compensating gains due to demand substitution effects occur mainly in meat processing sectors other than beef and are relatively small adverse intra regional distributional effects are likely due to the concentration of beef production in the more disadvantaged areas the importance of appropriate policy responses is highlighted

tighter bonds customer supplier linkages in semiconductors angel d p 1994 tighter bonds customer supplier linkages in semiconductors reg studies 28 187 200 this paper examines changing linkage relations between high technology firms and their semiconductor suppliers in an effort to improve manufacturing performance and accelerate the pace of technology development high technology firms are establishing closer ties with semiconductor suppliers to date the restructuring of supplier relations has focused primarily upon increasing the flow of information among firms stronger forms of collaboration such as the co development of manufacturing and technological capability are less common the locational effects of tight supplier linkages are weaker than anticipated differing markedly from the intensified regionalization of manufacturing associated with just in time production in the automobile industry angel d p 1994 s agit il des liens plus etroits les relations client fournisseur dans l industrie des semi conducteurs reg studies 28 187 200 c

a comparative application of data envelopment analysis and translog methods an illustrative study of hospital production this paper compares inferences about hospital cost and production correspondences from two different estimation models 1 the econometric modeling of the translog cost function and 2 the application of data envelopment analysis dea while there are numerous examples of the application of each approach to empirical data this paper provides insights into the relative strengths of the estimation methods by applying both models to the same data the translog results suggest that constant reruns are operant whereas the dea results suggest that both increasing and decreasing returns to scale may be observed in different segments of the production correspondence in turn suggesting that the translog model may be averaging diametrically opposite behavior on the other hand by examining the rate of output transformation both models agree that patient days devoted to care of children are more resource intensive than those devoted to adults or to the elderly in addition we compare estimates of technical efficiencies of individual hospitals obtained from the two methods the dea estimates are found to be highly related to the capacity utilization but no such relationship was found for the translog estimates this comparative application of different estimation models to the same data to obtain inferences about the nature of underlying cost and production correspondences sheds interesting light on the strengths of each approach and suggests the need for additional research comparing estimation models using real as well as simulated data

estimating technical efficiency of australian dairy farms using alternative frontier methodologies technical efficiency is estimated and examined for a cross section of australian dairy farms using various frontier methodologies bayesian and classical stochastic frontiers and data envelopment analysis the results indicate technical inefficiency is present in the sample data also identified are statistical differences between the point estimates of technical efficiency generated by the various methodologies however the rank of farm level technical efficiency is statistically invariant to the estimation technique employed finally when confidence credible intervals of technical efficiency are compared significant overlap is found for many of the farms intervals for all frontier methods employed the results indicate that the choice of estimation methodology may matter but the explanatory power of all frontier methods is significantly weaker when interval estimate of technical efficiency is examined

malmquist type indices in the presence of negative data an application to bank branches in this paper we develop an index and an indicator of productivity change that can be used with negative data for that purpose the range directional model rdm a particular case of the directional distance function is used for computing efficiency in the presence of negative data we use rdm efficiency measures to arrive at a malmquist type index which can reflect productivity change and we use rdm inefficiency measures to arrive at a luenberger productivity indicator and relate the two the productivity index and indicator are developed relative to a fixed meta technology and so they are referred to as a meta malmquist index and meta luenberger indicator we also address the fact that vrs technologies are used for computing the productivity index and indicator a requirement under negative data which raises issues relating to the interpretability of the index we illustrate how the meta malmquist index can be used not only for comparing the performance of a unit in two time periods but also for comparing the performance of two different units at the same or different time periods the proposed approach is then applied to a sample of bank branches where negative data were involved the paper shows how the approach yields information from a variety of perspectives on performance which management can use

analysis of production efficiency of beef cow calf farms in alberta this article measures production efficiency across cow calf farms in alberta and examines the sources of variation in efficiency average technical allocative and economic efficiencies are respectively 83 78 and 67 biological efficiency increased conception calving and weaning rates larger herd size higher share of family labour and greater expense for bedding material reduce inefficiency inefficiency was also related to receipt of government subsidies

productivity growth technical progress and efficiency change in industrialized countries this paper analyzes productivity growth in 17 oecd countries over the period 1979 1988 a nonparametric programming method activity analysis is used to compute malmquist productivity indexes these are decomposed into two component measures namely technical change and efficiency change we find that u s productivity growth is slightly higher than average all of which is due to technical change japan s productivity growth is the highest in the sample with almost half due to efficiency change jel c43 d24 in this paper we apply recently developed

technical efficiency effects of input controls evidence from australia s banana prawn fishery this paper provides the first ex post estimates of the effects of input controls on technical efficiency in a fishery using individual vessel data from the northern prawn fishery of australia for the years 1990 1996 and 1994 2000 stochastic production frontiers are estimated to analyse the efficiency impacts of input controls on engine and vessel size the results indicate that technical efficiency is increasing in a measure of vessel size and engine capacity that was controlled by the regulator from 1985 to 2001 and decreasing in an unregulated input gear headrope length the study shows that fishers have substituted from regulated to unregulated inputs over the period 1990 2000 and technical efficiency has declined coincident with increasing restrictions on vessel size and engine capacity the decline in technical efficiency indicates that the goal of the regulator to increase economic efficiency has not been realized

assessing the impact of economic liberalization across countries a comparison of dairy industry efficiency in canada and the usa this paper examines and compares the technical efficiency measures of ontario and new york dairy producers for the period 1992 to 1998 a nonparametric stochastic frontier model is introduced to estimate technical efficiency the backfitting algorithm of breiman and friedman is used to estimate the frontier empirical results indicate that during the period of study new york dairy farmers produced milk more efficiently than ontario dairy producers but the magnitude of the difference was small the estimated mean technical efficiency for the former group is 0 602 as compared to 0 532 for the latter the results also indicated that over time dairy farms in both regions improved their level of technical efficiency furthermore no correlation was found between farm size and estimated technical efficiency

estimating total factor productivity growth in singapore at sectoral level using data envelopment analysis trends in total factor productivity growth tfpg are examined in the ten major sectors of singapore data are drawn from the yearbook of statistics singapore various issues and economic survey of singapore series ranging from the year 1985 to 2000 due to the heterogeneous characteristic of each sector and non availability of reliable input price data this study uses a non parametric frontier methodology known as data envelopment analysis dea to obtain the malmquist productivity index at the sectoral level the results can help singapore identify the best practice sector and laggards in three aspects efficiency change technical change and tfpg which is the qualitative productivity improvements needed for long term economic growth the three sets of productivity estimates are adjusted for effects of inflation and business cycles so that they are more reliable for policy implications this exercise will provide a platform for more detailed study on the determinants of tfp growth in different s

the impact of food scares on price adjustment in the uk beef market abstract this paper considers the impact of food scares predominately concerns relating to bse on uk beef prices at retail wholesale and producer levels over the 1990s acknowledging the co movement that exists between prices in the meat marketing chain we use a co integrating framework the results of which show the importance of publicity regarding the safety of food in the transmission of beef prices in the uk the food publicity index that we use has a marked negative impact on the prices at all levels a result that is consistent with the effect of an inward shift in the demand function moreover the extent of price decline varies between the marketing stages entailing that the price spreads rise in response to an increase in the negative publicity about food safety while not a formal test of market power these observations are consistent with recent theoretical results demonstrating that market power exacerbates price changes in the upstream sectors for a given change in the retail demand function the implication of these varying price changes is that the food safety concerns also cause the marketing margins between the stages to widen the uk s competition commission has recently investigated the abuse of market power in the food sector inspired largely by this specific issue

determinants of technical efficiency of crop and livestock farms in poland la pologne est l un des pays d europe de l est candidats a une accession a l union europeenne qui rencontre de graves problemes de restructuration agricole l article etudie l efficacite technique en 2000 d exploitations agricoles individuelles polonaises specialisees en elevage et en grandes cultures l efficacite est estimee par la methode de frontiere stochastique et sa variabilite statistique evaluee par la construction d intervalles de confiance l article examine egalement les determinants de l efficacite les resultats obtenus pas la methode de frontiere stochastique sont compares avec ceux obtenus par la methode de data envelopment analysis dea en moyenne l efficacite technique des exploitations d elevage est superieure a celle des exploitations de grandes cultures pour les deux specialisations la relation entre l efficacite et la taille des exploitations est positive les grandes exploitations sont les plus efficaces les resultats obtenus par la methode de frontiere stochastique sont generalement confirmes par la methode dea la qualite de la terre et le degre d integration dans les marches d aval sont d importants determinants de l efficacite la faible education est un obstacle majeur a l efficacite en particulier pour les exploitations de grandes cultures de plus celles ci utilisent beaucoup les marches de facteurs terre et travail alors que les exploitations d elevage utilisent plutot leurs propres terres et le travail familial