The efficiency of women fanners in the agricultural sector of developing countries is passionately debated. Very few studies have examined this issue in African agriculture. All previous studies were based on production functions, but have been criticised as suffering from simultaneous equation...

Few studies have been made of how fanners make decisions. Most research and teaching has focused on the decision event, not the whole process. Current knowledge of the decision making process is reviewed and described as a set of eight functions or elements: values and goals, problem detection,...

Impacts of agricultural and nonagricultural trade liberalization on agriculture are assessed in a multi-commodity, multi-country framework. By modeling simultaneously all goods sectors of the economy, we evaluate the importance of: (a) relative price changes between sectors, and (b) income and...

Using the multi-product translog cost function, this paper examines the cost structure and technical change occurring within the novel Ghanaian rural banks. The results of the seemingly unrelated error components model indicate substantial unexploited economies of scale in individual products as...

This study investigates non-parametrically the optimizing behavior of a sample of 289 Kansas farms under profit-maximization and cost-minimization hypotheses. The study uses both deterministic and stochastic non-parametric tests. The deterministic results do not support strict adherence to...

In this study, we estimate production costs and elasticities of factor substitution for Zimbabwean smallholders, using a dual (cost function) approach with detailed data on prices paid and received by each of 65 farms across six survey sites over two years. We find that 95% of observed farm...

Advanced conceptual techniques for breakeven analysis of agricultural enterprise budgets are developed and applied. Breakeven points of a single agricultural enterprise, breakeven points between enterprises, and elasticities of breakeven points between enterprises are defined and mathematically...

This paper explains market segmentation that occurs in the Philippine informal credit markets through the matching of borrowers and lenders by their occupational specializations to internalize transaction costs and facilitate economic activity. The regression results support a predictable...

Chile is one of the few countries that has encouraged the use of markets in water resource management. In order to assess the impact of water markets and transactions costs in Chile, four river valleys, the Maipo, Elqui, Limari, and the Azapa were selected as case studies. Transactions from the...

The external cost associated with the spread of pasture weeds such as serrated tussock (Nassella trichotoma) is an important economic problem. This problem is complicated in many parts of south-eastern Australia where low rainfall and low soil fertility prevent the economic viability of control...