Taken together, studies that examine how well commodity futures markets perform find that risk premiums are common—and so unbiasedness is not—and markets are not uniformly efficient across commodities or forecast horizons. This large body of research sheds important light on whether and to...

The objective of this paper was to examine the cost efficiency of corn and soybean production for typical farms involved in the cash crop agri benchmark network. Using a data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach, efficiency indices were computed for 35 corn farms, representing 15 countries...

This paper examined cost efficiency differences between rural hospitals participating in the Critical Access Hospital (CAH) Program and a group of non-converting, prospectively paid rural hospitals using both a two-stage semi-parametric approach as well as stochastic frontier analysis (SFA)....

This research aims to benchmark agricultural supply cooperatives regarding their fertilizer application services. Cooperative fertilizer application departments are essentially an extension of member farm operations. Because farm supply cooperatives return profits to their user members, the...

Large expenses associated with rice production and dependence on energy related inputs like fuel and fertilizer in particular compel rice producers to use management practices that are input efficient and result in least cost. This study uses data envelopment analysis (DEA) to calculate...

This paper examined the relationship between cost efficiency and feed grain production in Kansas. Using data from 2002 to 2011, corn production was significantly and positively related to cost efficiency in eastern and western Kansas, while grain sorghum production was significant and positively...