This paper explores the role of managerial ability in determining efficiency in New York dairy farms. Using an unbalanced panel of farm data from 1993 through 2004, we estimate output-oriented technical efficiencies using stochastic distance frontier functions. We find that both lagged net farm...

The productivity of farmers at six different age cohorts was computed by estimating production functions using 1987 census data. The results suggest that farmers of different ages operate with slightly different technologies and use various inputs at different efficiencies. Compared with...

Farmer productivity by age was estimated, allowing for differences because of efficiency and returns to scale. Using Census of Agriculture data, estimates vary by state, but returns to scale average 1.07. Efficiency increases average 4.5 percent every ten years of age, to the age interval 35 to...

Technical efficiencies calculated using aggregated inputs are biased. It is shown empirically and analytically that input aggregation decreases calculated technical efficiencies and changes relative technical efficiencies among firms. Moreover, aggregation fails to separate technical efficiency...

I argue that much of what researchers have been measuring as technical inefficiency may be allocative inefficiency. When inputs are aggregated it is shown that any allocative inefficiency is manifested as technical inefficiency. Greater degrees of aggregation may produce lower measures of...

Agricultural production estimates have often differentiated and estimated different technologies within a sample of farms. The common approach is to use observable farm characteristics to split the sample into groups and subsequently estimate different functions for each group. Alternatively,...