Inter-firm differences in economic efficiency are major factors explaining differences in firm survival and growth and changes in industry structure. Thus, factors explaining differences in efficiency are of major interest to many involved in or affected by the industry. This study was...

This paper addresses the question how team production promotes efficiency of a firm when some inputs can be rewarded on the basis of outputs but some cannot because they are shared among outputs and non-separable. A multi-activity DEA model with variable returns to scale is proposed to provide...

A large proportion of the on-going reductions in global food prices are attributable to the efficiency gains associated with various ‘green revolutions’. Unfortunately the welfare gains associated with such productivity growth are unevenly distributed, with many African states reaping...

The Productivity Commission Staff Working Paper, ‘Precaution and the Precautionary Principle: two Australian case studies’ by Annette Weier and Paul Loke, was released in September 2007.The Precautionary Principle was conceived as a response to the inherent difficulties faced by decision...

This paper explores the use of a micro-economic model to analyse the provisions and parties of bioprospecting contracts. It focuses on the pharmaceutical industry as the representative biodiversity buyer, presenting an original theoretical framework that explains the main contract...

Limited data on the allocation of inputs to different activities has limited agricultural economists' attempts to measure sub-sector productivity growth in agriculture. However, recent developments have enabled us to estimate total factor productivity (TFP) growth for crops and livestock...

The Malmquist index has become extensively used in international comparisons of agricultural productivity since it does not require prices for its estimation, which are normally not available. However, the DEA approach used to estimate this index still uses implicit price information. This...

Productivity often increases in a part of an industry while remaining unchanged in the rest of the industry. In assessing the social gain from a productivity increase in a part of an industry producing a tradeable commodity it is necessary to consider the relationships between the part of the...

The literature of productive efficiency analysis is divided into two main branches: the parametric Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) and nonparametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). This paper attempts to combine the virtues of both approaches in a unified framework. We follow the SFA...

This paper measures agricultural productivity among a set of thirteenMediterranean countries which includes two EU- 15 countries (Greece and Spain), anothertwo EU- 25 (Cyprus and Malta) one country under accession negotiations (Turkey) andeight Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries...