This study evaluates the environmental efficiency of seven recently constructed ethanol plants in the North Central region of the U.S., using nonparametric data envelopment analysis (DEA). Environmental efficiency is measured and decomposed into its technical and allocative sources. Results show...

Price volatility and policy changes may compromise the ability of corn ethanol plants to operate above average variable cost and avoid shutdown. This study derives a variable cost function capable of accommodating two features of ethanol plants; 1) some inputs are used in fixed proportions and...

Traditional measures of technological change, such as the rate of technical change, are based on producer-oriented prices. Here, we employ a general equilibrium analysis of an open economy to examine how the consumer welfare gain from a technological change, measured as Hicksian equivalent...

This study has estimates a Fourier flexible production frontier to examine agricultural productivity in forty-one sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries during 1961-1999. The primary empirical result is that only nine of these countries experienced productivity improvements, while average...

Recent studies have revealed that less developed countries (LDCs) have been taxing their agricultural sectors at rates of 40-50%. This study uses quantity-based general equilibrium measures of deadweight loss to evaluate the cost of these distortions in 18 of these countries. The Allais-Debreu...