Efficiency in New Zealand Sheep and Beef Farming: The Impacts of Regulatory Reform

Abstract

In this study, we consider the impacts of dramatic regulatory reform during the 1980s on the efficiency of farms in New Zealand, using unbalanced panel data. A translog distance function representing the multiple output and input technology and incorporating nonneutral regulatory impacts is used for the analysis. Determinants of technical inefficiency, including a regulatory variable, a time term, and a debt/equity ratio, are also incorporated in a one-step model estimated by maximum-likelihood, stochastic production frontier methods. We find evidence of regulatory-induced changes in output composition - toward beef and deer, and away from wool, and especially lamb - but little associated technical inefficiency. These patterns motivated investment in complementary capital, land, and beef/deer livestock inputs. Firms that were more flexible in their adaptation toward these new mixes adjusted to regulatory changes with less upheaval, so any existing inefficiency appears linked to debt/ equity levels. © 2000 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Crop Diversification, Economic Performance and Household's Behaviours: Evidence from Vietnam

“…we select the translog functional form used by previous studies (Lovell et al, 1994;Grosskopf et al, 1995;Coelli et al, 1998;Paul et al, 2000;Irz and Thirtle, 2004;Paul and Nehring, 2005;Rasmussen, 2010;Rahman, 2010). The translog is a flexible function and it has some advantages that it allows the elasticity of scale to change for various farm 4 See further details of properties of input distance function in Kumbhakar and Lovell (2003).…”

Technical and environmental efficiencies and best management practices in agriculture

“…11 These constraints can be imposed by normalizing the function by one of the outputs (Paul, Johnston and Frengley, 2000) or by one input (Paul and Nehring, 2005). As mentioned by Atkinson, Färe and Primont (2003), a direct estimation with linear homogeneity imposed via parametric restriction has the advantage of automatically generating the fitted distance function, and the partial derivatives of its log.…”

Efficiency and Input- and Output-Substitutability in English Higher Education 1996/97 to 2007/08: A Parametric Distance Function Approach

“…The translog fulfils all three criteria and has been used to estimate distance functions in the context of: telecommunications (Whiteman 1999;Uri 2003a;2003b); railways (Coelli and Perelman 1999;Baños-Pino et al 2002;Atkinson et al 2003b;O'Donnell and Coelli 2003); electric utilities (Whiteman 1999;Atkinson and Primont 2002;Atkinson et al 2003a); the water industry (Saal and Parker 2006); and agriculture (Paul et al 2000;Karagiannis et al 2004;Tonini 2004;Paul and Nehring 2005;Balcombe et al 2007). …”