Factors that Affect the Technical and Allocative Efficiency in the Colombian Coffee Sector : An Application with Data Envelopment Analysis (Factores que Afectan la Eficiencia Técnica y Asignativa en el Sector Cafetero Colombiano: Una Aplicación con Análisis Envolvente de Datos) (Spanish)

Technical and Allocative efficiency are relative concepts, first it is used conventionally, to know if a producer obtain the maximum level of production, according to the amount of inputs used in the process. The second looks for to know if the producer uses the optimal amounts of inputs in the production process, according to the prices of these production factors. This study use microeconomic data on coffee producers of the Caldas, Quindío and Risaralda to determinate the levels of technical and allocative efficiency using “Data Envelopment Analysis – DEA.” Technical efficiency for small producers it is 3.76%, for middle producer it is 51.71% and big producers it is 60.15%, for the all coffee sector the technical efficiency it is 42.38%. Whereas for the allocative efficiency, the results are 36.13%, 42.98%, 18.86% and 36.50%, respectively. This results show that the coffee Colombian sector it is inefficient technical and allocatively. This means that the big producers uses the correct amount of inputs for maximize the coffee production but they do not produce following the schedule of minimum cost. On the other hand, small and middle producers and for all coffee sector they do not use efficiently the inputs, they do not maximize your coffee production and they do not produce following the minimum cost schedule, this because they are technical and allocatively inefficient