Technical efficiency and technology in Eastern and Western agriculture: A comparison of crop and dairy farms in Hungary and France

The paper investigates the difference in technical efficiency and technology between French and Hungarian farms in dairy and cereal, oilseed and protein seed (COP) sectors during 2001-2004. The analyses is performed with Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) under separate and common frontiers. Results indicate that Hungarian dairy farmers are more clustered to their own frontier than French farms are, but that the difference is less clear in COP farming. Hungarian dairy and COP farms are less scale efficient than French farms on average. Under a common hypothetical technology, Hungarian farms would be the leaders. Reasons might be the presence of large corporate farms and a higher public support in Hungary.