The purpose of this research is to determine how technically efficient small-scale producers are in two provinces (North and South Kivu) in the Democratic of Republic (DR) of Congo at producing two different varieties of beans: bush and climbing beans. In addition to calculating the efficiency...

The paper aims at examining how sources and distribution of revenue at the local government level influence the economic well-being of citizens. The results of this study help to illuminate the effect of revenue sources on local government efforts on economic development and their capacity to...

This study examines the impacts of empirical definition of zero output values on price elasticities, economy of scope, and scale using the Translog cost function. A system of cost and factor share equations with regularity conditions imposed is estimated. Results show that the choice of default...

This paper evaluates scale economies and efficiencies for Rural Credit Cooperatives (RCCs) in China using both parametric and nonparametric techniques. Diseconomies of scale and allocative inefficiency are found. The results reveal the need for RCCs to decrease their size and the need for...

This paper estimates and compares generalized Box-Cox and composite cost functions to identify scale and scope economies. The robustness of the outcomes to different functional specifications was examined. Increasing returns to scale was common for product-specific and the overall measures....

Factors influencing the salaries of university agricultural economists were examined and compared to previous work. Results suggest the impact of publication output has remained relatively constant for the past 25 years, while other factors like grantsmanship have changed significantly....

This paper investigates productivity growth as measured by the Malmquist productivity index (MPI) among a sample of 331 Kansas farms between the years 1993 and 2011. The MPI index is decomposed to explore the main sources of productivity growth. Technical change (TC) is found to be the main...

This paper tests the farm level profit maximization hypothesis using a nonparametric production analysis approach allowing for measurement error in the input and output variables. All farms violated Varian’s deterministic Weak Axiom of Profit Maximization (WAPM). The magnitude of minimum...

Coffee production in Puerto Rico is labor intensive since harvest is done by hand for quality and topography conditions. Färe's nonparametric approach was used to estimate technical, allocative, scale and overall efficiency measures for coffee farms in Puerto Rico during the 2000 to 2004...

The objective of this paper is to examine credit migration of individual Kansas farms from 1980-2003. Individual farm data collected from the Kansas Farm Management Data Bank are employed. From 1980 to 2003 these farms had an average credit rating equivalent to a Standard and Poor's B...