We divide countries into two technology categories: developed and developing. Agricultural efficiency within each technology category was calculated. Cross-category efficiency measures were developed and combined with own-category measures to develop a technical difference index. Results...

Numerous methods for measuring multifactor productivity have been used by economists. This report uses a recently developed approach, data envlopment analysis, to measure productivity. This method can be used not only to calculate productivity but also to divide productivity measures into...

Brazil's agricultural sector underwent major changes in the past two decades. Though Brazil is abundant in labor, land, and animal power, government subsidies encouraged the use of fertilizer and machines. Since productivity growth arises from technical change, Brazil's drive to modernize its...

The ag-biotech industry underwent considerable consolidation in the last decade in part to take advantage of economics of scale and scope. The paper investigates the impact of such consolidation on inventive activity at the firm level. Careful attention is paid to the role of firm size,...

Studies on efficiency changes in transition agriculture yield mixed results. This paper develops both a theoretical model of efficiency changes during transition and uses a unique set of representative farm survey data to assess efficiency changes during transition. We find that reforms have a...

We investigate the temporal and spacial nature of productivity growth and its components in Chinese agriculture from 1980-1995 using nonparametric Malmquist procedures. The results indicate that the high rate of technical progress and deterioring efficiency performance coexisted in Chinese...

A stochastic grain production frontier model is estimated on a representative sample of Ukrainian state farms. Technical inefficiency effects are modeled as a function of workforce composition, other farm-specific variables, and time. Technical inefficiency increased over time. Investment in...

Thailand's economic boom since 1987 resulted in absolute agricultural employment and land use declines. Both were caused by rapid wage growth due to nonagricultural investment. Irreversible land use changes and rapid agricultural mechanization have followed. Following the 1987 financial crisis,...

Traditional Total factor productivity [TFP] misrepresents the true change in agricultural productivity because environmental bads jointly produced with desirable outputs are unaccounted. Nonparametric measures incorporating environmental bads support the hypothesis that prior [after] to 1980's...

Residue management system (RMS) offers increase productivity gain to farmers by increasing the organic matter. Farmers have failed to realize this gain and consequently have not adopted RMS in cotton cultivation. Benefit of adopting RMS system appears sooner than farmers would think.