Agricultural Productivity Among Brazilian Regions - 1970-1995

This article analyzes total productivity, technical efficiency and technological change of agricultural GDP of Brazilian regions in the period 1970-1995, using Malmquist total productivity index and the model of sthocastic metaproduction frontier. The estimated production frontiers were used to calculate production elasticities, potential growth of regional productivity and the variation in the index of total productivity of Malmquist, which is decomposed in the indexes of efficiency change and technological change. Based on the estimated coefficients of the model it was verified that investiment in capital lower banking expenditures (interest and bank rates) and greater participation of public fundings to finance such an activity could contribute to the reduction of technical inefficiencies in agriculture. The estimated potential productivity ratios indicate that the Southeast region is the most productive; moreover these gains were explained more by tecnological variation than technical efficiency variation