This paper addresses the issue of measuring waste due to the imposition of a production quota. our objective is to elaborate two alternative general equilibrium concepts of the welfare loss due to the imposition of a production quota, and to illustrate their use by considering costs of the U.S....

This paper examines changes in agricultural productivity in18 developing countries over the period 1961-1985. We use the nonparametric, output- based Mamquist index to examine whether the results from such approach confirm results from other methods that have indicated declining agricultural...

Replaced with revised version of paper 07/29/09.

Continuation of policy support for the US corn ethanol industry is being debated due to doubts about the greenhouse gas effects of the industry and the effects of the industry on food prices. Yet there is no publicly available data on the economic and technical performance of the current...

This study estimates nonparametric non-stochastic Malmquist indices and a stochastic Fourier production frontier to examine agricultural productivity and its interactions with socio-political institutions in 41 sub-Saharan African countries during 1961-1999. We have learned from this study that...

Traditional measures of the benefits of technological change use producer prices. Consumer-oriented measures are more appropriate but they require knowledge of price impacts. They may diverge in the presence of distortions. This paper shows that in general equilibrium they are interrelated...

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...

Agricultural productivity in 41 Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries from 1960 to 1999 is examined by estimating a semi-nonparametric Fourier production frontier. Over the four decades the estimated rate of productivity change was 0.83% per year, although the average rate from 1985-99 was a strong...