We consider how to organize the processing and marketing of an agricultural product when farming costs are known only by the individual farmers. We show that when marginal costs are un-correlated and the market for final goods is competitive, the socially optimal production levels may be...

The contracts we consider in this paper must solve three problems: moral hazard, insurance and discrimination. The moral hazard problem is that of providing the agents with incentives to perform in a way that maximizes the profit to the principal, when the agent's actions are unobservable. The...

We discuss the design of interactive, internet based benchmarking using parametric (statistical) as well as non-parametric (DEA) models. The user receives benchmarks and improvement potentials. The user is also given the possibility to search different efficiency frontiers and hereby to explore...

On the Danish milk quota exchange each producer can submit a single bid (a quantity and a price limit) only. We demonstrate that this restriction has several distorting effects. First, traders minimise the risk of foregoing profitable trade by submitting their average valuation rather than their...

This paper analyzes a contract between farmers and a large company in the Danish food industry, Danisco Foods. Production of green peas requires a very accurate coordination, which is obtained through centralized decision-making. The contract is based on a tournament system providing risk...

We introduce simple production economic models to estimate the potential gains from mergers. We decompose the gains into technical efficiency, size (scale) and harmony (mix) gains, and we discuss alternative ways to capture these gains. We propose to approximate the production processes using...

In Denmark, many small-scale forest owners are affiliated to local district offices of The Danish Forestry Extension Service. Increasing economic pressure has caused a search for more efficiency in the Service, including potential reorganisation. In this paper, the efficiency of the different...

We analyse how the aggregation of production processes affects efficiency evaluations. A production unit can be inefficient even though all its production processes are efficient. We show how to test if observed "inefficiencies" may be caused by an aggregation and how to correct efficiency...

Super efficiency evaluations are introduced along the lines of the potential improvements approach in Bogetoft and Hougaard (1999). Both a reference selection and a related super efficiency index is defined. The new (potential slack) super efficiency index is compared to a Farrell-based super...