Agricultural productivity growth in the European Union and transition countries

Malmquist total factor productivity (TFP) index has been extensively applied in the literature to measure productivity growth decomposition. This study applies a parametric decomposition of a Generalized Malmquist TFP index to measure and compare the levels and trends in agricultural productivity in European countries, making use of the most-recent data available from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of United Nations. The aim of this study is to measure TFP developments in agriculture of transition countries after breakdown of socialism and to compare their TFP growth with other European countries. The Generalized Malmquist productivity index can be decomposed into technological change, technical efficiency change and scale efficiency change. These measures will provide insightful information for policymakers in designing proper policies to promote a higher growth rate in agriculture in transition countries.