Linguistic clustering and aggregate productive efficiency in Indonesia

The impacts of zero tillage (ZT) on soil physical, biological, and chemical properties have been fairly documented in the literature. However, there is still an information gap in the developing world in general and in integrated crop–livestock production systems in dry areas of the world in particular. Using a sample of 621 farmers in Syria, this study assessed the implications of adoption of ZT technology on productive efficiency, input-specific resource use efficiency, and production risk. A stochastic production frontier model, which explicitly and simultaneously accounts for technical inefficiency and production risk, was used to estimate total factor and input-specific technical efficiencies and the risk of obtaining lower levels of yields for each of the sampled farms. Model results show that adoption of ZT proved to be an effective risk management strategy in this dryland production system, where it led to 95% and 33.3% reductions in the risk of obtaining wheat yield levels below 1000 kg/ha and 1500 kg/ha, respectively. Overall, the results have a clear indication that using ZT leads to improvements in productive efficiency as the adoption of ZT led to 93% reduction in the risk of obtaining efficiency levels below 40%. Future research will be needed to shed light on whether coupling ZT with the other components of conservation agriculture will reverse some of these effects.

The paper contains an evaluation of the impact of assembly-line balancing and scheduling on production efficiency. It describes issues connected with assembly-line balancing and the rules of scheduling production tasks. Some problems are indicated connected with the functioning of assembly line before the improving actions began, which have been eliminated by means of the assembly-line balancing and a new method of scheduling. Results connected with improved productivity and production efficiency are shown.

Background: Efficient utilization of agricultural inputs is fundamental to improving farm productivity and economic performance in crop production systems. In input-intensive crops such as cabbage, the profitability of cultivation depends not only on the level of input use but also on their optimal allocation. Imbalances in the use of key inputs, particularly fertilizers and plant protection chemicals, can lead to diminishing returns and increased production costs, thereby reducing overall efficiency. Such inefficiencies are of particular concern in off-season vegetable production, where higher input intensity and market-driven incentives amplify the economic consequences of suboptimal resource use. Aims: The study was undertaken to analyse allocative and technical efficiency and their implications for resource use in off-season cabbage farming. Study Design: A farm-level study based on primary data collected through simple random sampling with proportional allocation. Methodology: The study was conducted using data from 80 off-season cabbage farmers. Cobb–Douglas production function was employed to estimate allocative efficiency, while stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) was used to estimate technical efficiency. A Tobit regression model was applied to identify the influence of socio-economic factors on technical efficiency. Results: The results revealed significant allocative inefficiency across farm categories. Seed was underutilized (2.63), while labor was overutilized (-2.79) while fertilizer was underutilized in marginal farms (4.51). In small farms, seed (-3.84) and labor (-4.07) were overutilized, whereas fertilizer (2.65) was underutilized. In the stochastic frontier model, γ = 0.9988 indicated that the composite error variance was largely attributable to the inefficiency component relative to random noise, while σ² = 0.00123 reflected low overall dispersion in deviations from the frontier. The mean technical efficiency was 97.5 per cent, indicating that farms operated close to the production frontier with limited variation. Tobit results showed that age, farm size, and labor availability were statistically insignificant, implying a homogeneous efficiency structure across farms. Conclusion: The results suggest that the primary scope for improving performance in off-season cabbage production lies in enhancing allocative efficiency through rationalization of fertilizer and plant protection chemical use, given the relatively high and homogeneous levels of technical efficiency across farms.

The traditional Stochastic Frontier Model (SFM) suffers from a very restrictive assumption of independence of its error components and also limited ability to address heterogeneity (inefficiency effects) satisfactorily, thereby leading to potential biases in the estimation of model parameters, identification of inefficiency effect variables influencing efficiency and, ultimately, efficiency scores. This paper aims to investigate the consequences of ignoring any dependency in error components and heterogeneity in the stochastic frontier model, and proposes a copula-based SFM with heterogeneity to resolve such weaknesses based on a simulation study to prove its superiority over the traditional SFM, followed by an empirical application on a sample of rice producers from northern Thailand. We demonstrate that the proposed model, i.e., copula-based SFM with dependent error components and heterogeneity, is unbiased and robust. The simulation experiments show that the traditional SFM can cause biases in parameter estimation and severe overestimation of technical efficiency. The traditional SFM with heterogeneity also has similar consequences. However, just ignoring heterogeneity does not have a great impact on parameter estimation and technical efficiency compared to the consequence of ignoring dependency in error components. The empirical application of the proposed model results show that land, labor and material inputs are all significant drivers of rice production in our copula-based SFM with dependent error components and heterogeneity, whereas in the traditional SFM model only the land variable seems to be a significant driver of rice production. The mean technical efficiency (MTE) score was also overestimated by two points in the traditional SFM, i.e., MTE = 0.88 versus 0.86. Finally, results of the copula-based SFM with dependent error components and heterogeneity reveals that both subsistence pressure and the use of hired labor are significantly associated with technical inefficiency, whereas the traditional SFM could identify the effect of hired labor use only. Therefore, caution is necessary when interpreting results from the conventional SFM as the results may be biased, incomplete and/or inadequate.

The curvilinear relationships between structural embeddedness and productive efficiency: An exploratory study

Group-specific stochastic production frontier models with parametric specifications

A field experiment was conducted at Instructional Farm of ICAR- Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Tura during kharif, pre-rabi and rabi season of 2011-12 to 2013-14 to determine the suitable production potential, profitability, resource use efficiency and sustainability of diversified maize-legumes cropping system. The five cropping sequences viz., CS1: Maize + Blackgram (1:2) – green gram + maize (2:1) – tomato, CS2: maize + green gram(1:2) – green gram + maize (2:1) – tomato, CS3: maize + groundnut(1:2) – green gram + maize (2:1) – tomato, CS4: maize + Ssybean(1:2) – tomato and CS5: maize sole – green gram – tomato were replicated four times using a randomized block design on sandy loam soil with low to medium fertility level and slightly acidic in reaction. The cropping system “Maize + Green gram(1:2) – green gram + maize (1:1) – tomato” was found to be most remunerative and sustainable with system productivity (175.49 q/ha), net return (Rs.3,38,725/ha), profitability (Rs. 928.01 /ha/day), benefit cost ratio (4.40), sustainable yield index (1.00), production efficiency (Rs.58.30/ha/day), relative economic efficiency (162.72%), except land use efficiency(LUE) which was the highest (85.75%) in “maize + groundnut(1:2) – green gram + maize (1:1) – tomato” cropping system. The lowest system productivity, net returns, profitability, production efficiency, land use efficiency etc was found in maize+ soybean (1:2)- tomato followed by maize-greengram-tomato cropping system. Hence, the cropping sequence maize + green gram(1:2) – green gram + maize (1:1) – tomato and maize + groundnut(1:2) – green gram + maize (1:1) – tomato were found to be the productive, profitable, remunerative, resource use efficient and sustainable in the mid hills sub-tropical regions of India.

BackgroundEthnic minority communities and people living with dementia have been under‐represented in epidemiological studies. Concurrently, there are limited insights into how to analyse and report on a minimum set of variables related to cultural and linguistic diversity in such studies. In light of increased cultural and ethnic diversity in national populations, this review aims to investigate the collection, reporting and analysis of variables related to cultural and linguistic diversity in epidemiological dementia studies, and to identify best practice exemplars to inform recommendations for accurately capturing cultural diversity in future studiesMethodEmbase, PsycINFO, Medline, CENTRAL and CINAHL will be searched for peer‐reviewed studies published between January 2000 and January 2020. Selection criteria are: epidemiological dementia research studies (including clinical trials and cohort studies) focusing on cultural and ethnic minorities or cultural and ethnic difference, and undertaken in high‐income countries. The PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses) guidelines will be used to report findings.ResultResults will describe the variables related to cultural and linguistic diversity, the related measures used, how such variables are treated (e.g. categorical or continuous) and triangulated, what corrections are made (if any) for variables such as time lived in country of settlement, and how these are analysed to inform understanding of dementia among ethnic minorities in high‐income countries.ConclusionBased on these findings, best practice exemplars will be identified, and recommendations made for a minimum and consistent set of variables relating to ethnic diversity to be collected and reported. The study addresses methodological uncertainties around which variables to collect and how to bring them together in a robust analysis that accounts for the cultural and pathological heterogeneity often found among ethnic minority study participants living with dementia.Reference 1Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2018. Older Australia at a glance. 2L. F., Barcenilla‐Wong, A. L., and Brijnath, B. 2019. Including ethnic and cultural diversity in dementia research. Medical Journal of Australia, 211, 345. 3World Bank Country and Lending groups.https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/906519#High_income. Accessed 14 January 2020.

This paper examines potential of contract farming as a rural development tool by revealing its effect on productivity and income of small holders in tea production in north-western Vietnam. In the present research, three economic analyses are applied. First, the technical efficiency of tea production is estimated by using stochastic frontier model. The results show that contract farming achieved significantly higher technical efficiency compared to non-contract farming. Second, logit model is investigated to determine the influential socio-economic characteristics of households for contract participation. The model indicates that social relationship of households, such as the membership in the communist party, play an important role in contract participation with 73% correct prediction. Finally, the impact of contract participation on income is estimated by applying Propensity Score Matching. A significant effect of contract participation on income by 8,000 VND daily per capita can be observed.

This study investigates the level of production and cost efficiency as well as economic efficiency of fish farming. The study is based on primary cross sectional data collected from six local government area (LGAs) selected from the six( 6) states that make up the of South-western zone of Nigeria, on a representative basis of one local government per state. The farmer's economic efficiencies are estimated as the product of TE and AE. The production technology of the farmers is assumed to be specified by the Cobb-Douglas frontier production function. Findings from the results indicated that a unit increase in use of feed, high stock density, quantity of lime and organic fertilizer used will increase fish output. The study revealed that fish farming operation in the study area is yet to achieve its maximum possible efficiency level. The results indicate that involvement in fish farming under high level of productive efficiency will increase fish supply in Nigeria, thereby reducing fish importation with an attendant improvement in the value of foreign reserve and by extension stability in the foreign exchange value. . KEYWORD: Fish, Production efficiency, Cost efficiency, Economic Efficiency, Stochastic frontier

Purpose – The last decade witnessed the reform of China's financial sector, during which Chinese commercial banks’ ownership and operation had been significantly changed in order to improve efficiency. The purpose of this paper is to investigates whether these banks have improved their productivity efficiency during their rapid expansion and growth in the post reform era from 2004 to 2011. Design/methodology/approach – Data envelopment analysis is used to investigate the production efficiency of Chinese commercial banks during 2004-2011. First, the technical efficiency (TE) score is constructed to evaluate bank productivity. The TE score is disintegrated into pure technical efficiency (PTE) and scale efficiency (SE) to examine the effects of technical factors and scale economies. Second, the Malmquist index is constructed to explore the year-by-year productivity. Lastly, regression analysis examines how bank characteristics and ownership structure affect productivity efficiency. Findings – The Big Four banks are less efficient than other commercial banks, and public banks are less efficient than private banks. The low efficiency is primarily due to scale inefficiency, rather than PTE. In addition, ownership structure impacts production efficiency. Specifically, foreign ownership is related to high efficiency while state ownership is associated with lower productivity. Research limitations/implications – There were small observations of public banks in China. Thus, a more comprehensive test is impractical to explore whether or not annual changes in ownership structure improve their production efficiency. With more date, such a test will reveal further information about the relationship between ownership and productivity. Originality/value – The authors are the first to assess the production efficiency of Chinese commercial banks after the recent financial reform during which Chinese commercial banks had undergone significant structural changes. The lower overall productivity of Big Four and public banks is a result of scale inefficiency, although these banks are better than their peers with respect to input-output transformation.

Heckman’s (Ann Econ Soc Meas 4(5), 475–492, 1976; Econometrica 47, 153–161, 1979) sample selection model has been employed in three decades of applications of linear regression studies. This paper builds on this framework to obtain a sample selection correction for the stochastic frontier model. We first show a surprisingly simple way to estimate the familiar normal-half normal stochastic frontier model using maximum simulated likelihood. We then extend the technique to a stochastic frontier model with sample selection. In an application that seems superficially obvious, the method is used to revisit the World Health Organization data (WHO in The World Health Report, WHO, Geneva 2000; Tandon et al. in Measuring the overall health system performance for 191 countries, World Health Organization, 2000) where the sample partitioning is based on OECD membership. The original study pooled all 191 countries. The OECD members appear to be discretely different from the rest of the sample. We examine the difference in a sample selection framework.

The first chapter studies a varying coefficient panel data model with different smoothing variables and fixed effects using a two-step estimation approach. The first-step pilot estimator is constructed by ap- approximating the varying coefficients with B-spline functions. The pilot estimator is then used to perform a one-step backfitting to obtain the second-step efficient estimator with kernel local linear estimation. The second-step estimator is efficient in the sense of being equivalent to a procedure knowing the other components of the varying coefficient. The asymptotic properties of both the pilot and efficient estimators are obtained. A Monte Carlo simulation indicates that the proposed estimator performs well with finite sample size. The second chapter investigates the production efficiency of the U.S. coal-burning power plants that are covered under the Acid Rain Program from 2001 to 2005. To account for the influence of the Acid Rain Program on technical efficiency and the impact of environment variables on the marginal product of inputs, I introduce a panel data stochastic production frontier model with fixed effects and varying coefficients. The varying coefficients capture the relationship between power plant characteristics and the marginal return on inputs. Besides, the proposed model allows the inefficiency to depend on the environment variables, such as environmental policies. This set up enables the identification of the existence and magnitude of inefficiency. The proposed model relaxes the functional form assumption on coefficient functions and distribution assumption on the error terms. The empirical results reveal that the Acid Rain Program improves production efficiency for some power plants based on their operation and maintenance costs on sulfur removal equipment per unit of generating capacity. In addition, the marginal return on capital is affected by the years of operation of a power plant. The third chapter studies the performance of water utilities in China. Water shortage is of great concern in China. Improving water delivery efficiency is the direct and efficient method to alleviate the water crisis. This paper performs an efficiency analysis of 56 water utilities during the period from 2009 to 2013. A semiparametric stochastic production frontier model with smooth coefficient is introduced to evaluate the magnitude of technical inefficiency and to examine the impact of institutional and operational condition, such as customer density, non-household user rate, non-revenue water ratio, average water pressure in pipes, and the percentage of internal staff among all the employees. The discussion focuses on the impact of the internal

Most stochastic frontier models have focused on estimating average productive efficiency across all firms. The failure to estimate firm-specific effiicency has been regarded as a major limitation of previous stochastic frontier models. In this paper, we measure firm-level efficiency using panel data, and examine its finite sample distribution over a wide range of the parameter and model space. We also investigate the performance of the stochastic frontier approach using three estimators: maximum likelihood, generalized least squares and dummy variables (or the within estimator). Our results indicate that the performance of the stochastic frontier approach is sensitive to the form of the underlying technology and its complexity. The results appear to be quite stable across estimators. The within estimatoris preferred, however, because of weak assumptions and relative computational ease.

This study evaluated the efficiency and the technological gap ratios (TGRs) of the agroforestry production in the rural areas of Kaduna State, Nigeria and discussed the implication for environmental resource management. A multi-stage sampling technique was used. A total number of 120 respondents comprising of 62 (51.67%) male agroforestry farmers and 58 (48.33%) female agroforestry farmers were selected. The primary data were collected based on a well-structured and a well-designed questionnaire. The data were analyzed using the following tools: descriptive statistics, the stochastic production efficiency frontier model, the stochastic meta-efficiency frontier model, and the principal component model. Farm size, labor input, chemical input, fertilizer input, and agroforestry tree density positively contribute to the output of male and female agroforestry farmers as well as pooled data respectively. The average agroforestry farmers achieve 83.1% (male), 64.7% (female) and 72.8% (pooled) of their frontier output given their present technologies. In other words, agroforestry farms lose 16.9%, 35.3% and 27.2% of their maximum potentials output to inefficiencies. The mean technical efficiency relative to the meta-frontier was estimated to be 74%, 47% and 59% for the male and female agroforestry farmers and the pooled data respectively. Based on the estimated technological gap ratios (TGRs) of 90%, 73% and 82% for the male and female agroforestry farmers and the pooled data respectively, the average male and female agroforestry farmers and the pooled data could be more technically efficient by increasing their output and closing the gaps of 10%, 27% and 18% respectively. The study recommended that farmers should be educated about the benefits of the agroforestry production technologies. Keywords: economics, technology gap ratios, agroforestry production, stochastic meta – efficiency frontier model, gender, rural areas, resource management, Nigeria