Developing countries often tax agriculture heavily, a practice that might affect the productivity as well as the quantity of resources allocated to agriculture. A variable-coefficient cross-country agricultural production function is estimated, with past price expectations among the determinants...

Countries often have a Jekyll-Hyde relationship with their agricultural sector – policymakers both tax and subsidize agriculture. In the early stages of a country's development, policy makers exploit agriculture through export taxes and overvalued exchange rates. In contrast, agricultural...

Why do poor countries tax agriculture more than other sectors, whereas rich countries subsidize farmers? Using the neoclassical economic theory of the political market for Distortionary policies, an explanation is sought by examining changes to factors affecting the supply and demand curves in...

Recent studies have revealed that LDCs have been taxing their agricultural sectors at rates of 40 to 50 percent. While it is widely acknowledged that this taxation might have significant allocative effects, this paper examines a cross-country aggregated agricultural production function. The...

This paper examines changes in agricultural productivity in 18 developing countries over the period 1961-1985. We use a nonparametric, output-based Malmquist index and a parametric variable coefficients Cobb-Douglas production function to examine, whether our estimates confirm results from other...

We extend data envelopment analysis (DEA) to decompose the economic efficiency of a sample of ethanol plants into internal (technical and allocative) and boundary (marketing) sources. This decomposition allows us to evaluate the channels through which different plant characteristics affect plant...

Replaced with revised version of paper 07/24/09.

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...