The beef sector has undergone a series of changes as a result of successive food scares and agricultural policy reforms. The purpose of the paper is to analyse technical efficiency and profitability in Spanish livestock enterprises during the 1990s, focusing on the possible impact of the BSE crisis and the 1992 CAP reform on each of these variables. The main findings reveal the existence of technical inefficiency during the sample period. Some factors have a positive impact, others a negative impact, on efficiency. As far as the effects of CAP reform and the BSE crisis are concerned, the results show the ineffectiveness of agricultural policy regulation to promote efficiency in the sector and the improvement in the efficiency as a consequence of the BSE crisis. The profitability analysis reveals the importance of direct subsidies, however. In their absence, a large percentage of holdings is unable to remunerate either own or rented factors. Analysis shows, therefore, that there are two counteracting effects from subsidies. On the one hand, they form a major part of the resources of livestock farmers, allowing them to meet input costs and preventing land abandonment. On the other hand, they have a significant negative impact on the level of technical efficiency estimated.
This paper aims to evaluate the performance of the most significant football teams in Europe. In particular, we have selected all the teams who have participated in the UEFA Champions League (UCL) during the last nine seasons (2004/05 to 2012/13): 94 different clubs in total. We have applied the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), a deterministic non-parametric frontier method usually developed in efficiency studies. To solve the problem of measuring sporting results as output in knockout competitions we have proposed the use of the coefficients applied by UEFA from UCL revenue distribution. As far as we know it is the first time that it is analysed efficiency in UCL considering a long period of time and applying revenue distribution as sporting results measurement. These differences from previous studies let us to obtain some interesting results. Firstly, there is a high inefficiency level in UCL on the studied period: only the 9% of the teams seem to be efficient. Also, the teams have many problems to maintain their efficiency during the seasons. Secondly, the champion always is efficient. Thirdly, we have identified two inefficiency sources: waste of sport resources and the selection of sport tactics. Finally, from a methodological perspective, the output measure proposed seems to be suitable to represent reliably the sports results archived by clubs in this qualifying competition type. Some management implications have been suggested to boost efficiency in inefficient clubs. In some cases, clubs might employ better their resources. In other cases, changing tactics is the best solution.
This paper revisits the literature on farm restructuring in the CEECs by analysing the variations in farm performance in the Czech Republic a decade after the start of the transition process. It identifies seven clusters of farms that differ in their productivity and profitability usng data from 1998 and 1999. The analysis reveals that the vast majority of farms are unprofitable, and there is no strong evidence that individual farms perform better than corporate farms. In fact, there are large numbers of individual farms that are loss‐making on their agricultural activity with low factor productivity. Producer co‐operatives and limited liability companies suffer from debts inherited from the reform process. Future restructuring is likely to occur in all clusters rather than affecting just corporate farms.
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