Economies of Scale and Inefficiency in County Extension Councils: A Case for Consolidation?

Garrett, Thomas A.

doi:10.1111/0002-9092.00211

Cited by 10 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 20 publications

(2 reference statements)

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“…Para el caso de la ET, este autor tomó la producción de café tipo exportación con relación a la cantidad empleada en trabajadores, energía y capital. En la EA, manejó como variable dependiente los costos de producir el grano en este país como función del precio, sus insumos utilizados en la producción y la cantidad producida de café para consumo local en kilogramos por firma.26Pero no en café a escala nacional.27VéanseGarrett (2001) yChavas et al (2005).…”

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Factores que afectan la eficiencia técnica y asignativa en el sector cafetero colombiano: una aplicación con análisis envolvente de datos

Perdomo¹,

Mendieta²

2007

Revista Desarrollo y Sociedad

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Factores que afectan la eficiencia técnica y asignativa en el sector cafetero colombiano: una aplicación con análisis envolvente de datos

Perdomo¹,

Mendieta²

2007

Revista Desarrollo y Sociedad

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“…private industries such as police departments (Gyimah-Brempong, 1987), public libraries (Deboer, 1992), agriculture (Garrett, 2001), and the electric utility industry (Christensen and Greene, 1976). However, use of the translog cost function assumes that the industry of interest is a cost-minimizer.…”

Section: The Translog Cost Function Has Been Used To Analyze Scale Ecmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inefficient Education Spending in Public School Districts: A Case for Consolidation

Garrett¹,

Dodson²

2002

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This paper estimates scale economies for Arkansas school districts. Large economies of scale exist in teacher salary and supply costs, as well as total costs. Our results suggest that districts, especially rural districts, would experience measurable cost-savings from consolidation. We simulate a hypothetical rural school district consolidation to obtain cost-saving estimates from consolidation. Simulations indicate that districts could save an average of 34 percent in average variable costs. At the state level, consolidation of rural districts in Arkansas could annually save $40 million. However, consolidation of school districts may increase various implicit costs to students and local communities.

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“…Key among its facets was the dynamic linkage of colleges with rural communities through the land grant system. Extension workers, employed by the state, serve as conduits for disseminating critical innovative technologies and practices among farming communities, especially in rural areas (Garrett, 2001;Wellard et al, 2013). This top-down formal system is complemented by a host of companies and other organizations available to advise farmers on new strategies and respond to individual concerns.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Information Communication Technologies in Agricultural Extension Delivery

Amadu

McNamara²

2019

AJFAND

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Agriculture is the backbone of many countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, lack of efficient extension systems to support agricultural development is widely seen as a missing link in agricultural transformation in the region. International development agencies have in the past four decades invested heavily in various extension models such as the Training and Visit and Farmer Field School systems in order to enhance the performance of extension workers. Despite such investments, the performance of extension agents does remain suboptimal in many contexts. Studies in other sectors show that incentivizing worker performance through nudges such as incentive realignment schemes that tie worker performance to a pay/bonus system could enhance worker productivity. However, there is a lack of incentive realignment studies that estimate the performance of extension agents in sub-Saharan Africa. A potential hindrance to the application of such scheme to extension is the absence of monitoring mechanisms to track the performance of extension agents who often work across diverse local contexts to reach smallholder farmers with extension advice. This study empirically estimates the effect of an information communication technology (ICT)-based payment incentive system that tracks the performance of extension workers in rural Uganda. It undertakes a quasi-experimental ex-post impact assessment of a payment incentive realignment as an exogenous shift in the price of labor for extension services by Ugandan Community Knowledge Workers (CKWs) in 2011. This study applies a difference-indifference with propensity score matching technique to estimate the effect of an ICT-based incentive realignment scheme in 2011, on the performance of 461 CKWs in rural Uganda. The study shows that CKWs in rural Uganda respond positively to an ICT-based performance incentive scheme that affects the price of labor. Results suggest that such performance systems can enhance the productivity of CKWs-an exemplar of rural extension agents in Uganda and elsewhere in developing countries. It also finds that younger CKWs respond more productively to higher incentives than their older counterparts. Therefore, the study suggests that extension policies that tie extension agents' performance to ICT-based payment incentives could enhance their performance and contribute towards the sustainable developments goals on food security, among others, through multiplier effects.

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Economies of Scale and Inefficiency in County Extension Councils: A Case for Consolidation?

Cited by 10 publications

References 20 publications

Factores que afectan la eficiencia técnica y asignativa en el sector cafetero colombiano: una aplicación con análisis envolvente de datos

Factores que afectan la eficiencia técnica y asignativa en el sector cafetero colombiano: una aplicación con análisis envolvente de datos

Inefficient Education Spending in Public School Districts: A Case for Consolidation

The Role of Information Communication Technologies in Agricultural Extension Delivery

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