Productivity, technical and allocative efficiency and farm size in wheat farming in India: a DEA approach

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is used to estimate allocative and technical inefficiency in the cultivation of wheat on 300 farms in the Indian Punjab for the periods 1981-82 and 1982-83. These measures of efficiency as well as farm yield are related to farm size. The paper appears to be the first to measure technical and allocative efficiency in agriculture jointly. It is discovered that, on the whole, large farms are technically and allocatively more efficient than small farms for both years. At the disaggregated level a broadly similar result obtains. Policy implications, particularly for land reforms, are discussed.