This paper examines the technical efficiency (TE) of a sample of farms in North-Central Kansas practicing conventional and no-till practices. A stochastic frontier production model with technical inefficiency effects is used to obtain individual farm TE values and to explain sources of technical...

This paper empirically investigates optimal intertemporal investment behaviour of farmers in Australia. The dynamic investment model is estimated using pooled crosssectional and time-series farm survey data spanning the period 1979-1993. The model captures intertemporal investment behaviour of...

A nonparametric analysis of technical, allocative, scale, and scope efficiency of agricultural production is presented based on a sample of Wisconsin farmers. The results indicate the existence of important economies of scale on very small farms, and of some diseconomies of scale for the larger...

A discrete-time, continuous-space model of a livestock- crop producer is used to examine the long-run effects of phosphorus runoff controls on optimal livestock production and manure application practices. Quantity restrictions and taxes on phosphorus application are shown to reduce livestock...

This study offers an empirical framework for analyzing farmers' joint decisions to adopt organic farming practices and to seek technical (i.e., farming) information from various sources. To that end, a trivariate ordered probit model is specified and implemented in the case of organic land...

A model of manure utilization is developed and applied to four types of transportable manure. Model results highlight important response differences among manure types and generally illustrate the diseconomies of manure production. For example, as manure production increases, manure value...

This article reviews various models that may be used to explain optimal leverage choice for the proprietary farmer in a stochastic dynamic environment and develops a new model that highlights the risk of failure rather than the usual concept of risk as the variability of wealth. The model...

The relative efficiency levels of 283 rural households from three regions in eastern Paraguay are measured using a nonparametric approach. Technical, allocative, and scale efficiency measures are calculated both at national and regional levels, and factors that may affect the efficiency levels...

This investigation examines the impact of intensive farm management advice on levels and productivities of resource use on samples of farms. A total of 60 members of 13 farm management advisory services and 60 non-members, matched by locality, were studied in two farming regions of Western...

The classes of benefits and costs, private and external, arising from a partial movement from conventional to chemical-free farming are considered, a report is provided on a comparison of physical and financial characteristics of chemical-free and conventional cereal/livestock farming in...