This study analyzes the level and determinants of technical efficiency of soybean farms in the Saboba and Chereponi districts of northern Ghana. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 200 soybean farmers from which cross-sectional data was collected using a structured questionnaire. Data collected includes farmers’ socio-economic characteristics such as age and education as well as...

This paper attempts to identify sources of resource use inefficiency for cotton production in Pakistan’s Punjab. The use of a non-parametric method, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), is developed to study the relative technical and allocative efficiencies of individual farms which use similar inputs, produce the same product and operate under comparable circumstances. In the ‘cotton–wheat’ syste...

Taking China’s 56 national high-tech zones as the research objects, this paper respectively discusses the decomposition, features and diversity issues of the operational efficiency of the hightech zones, based on DEA evaluation of its comprehensive efficiency, pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency. This research shows: 1) Over the years, the operating efficiency of China’s hightech zon...

This paper explores the effects of monitoring in contracts between an exporting firm and small agricultural producers in Madagascar. Building on a theoretical framework that incorporates both adverse selection and moral hazard, I test for the effect of monitoring of the agents by the principal on productivity, all the while including an estimate of agent-specific technical inefficiency in the r...

BACKGROUND In 2004, the largest HIV prevention project (Avahan) conducted globally was implemented in India. Avahan was implemented by NGOs supported by state lead partners in order to provide HIV prevention services to high-risk population groups. In 2007, most of the NGOs reached full coverage. METHODS Using a panel data set of the NGOs that implemented Avahan, we investigate the level of t...

This paper presents the results of an efficiency study of Colombian public universities in 2012, conducted using the methodology of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and the models CCR, BCC and SBM under output orientation. The main objective is to determine technical, pure technical, scale and mix efficiencies using data acquired from the Ministry of National Education. An analysis of the result...

According to a frequently cited finding by Berger et al (1993), X-inefficiency contributes 20% to cost-inefficiency in western banks. Empirical studies of Chinese banks tend to place cost-inefficiency in the region of 50%. Such estimates would suggest that Chinese banks suffer from gross cost inefficiency. Using a nonparametric bootstrapping method, this study decomposes cost-inefficiency in Ch...

This paper illustrates the effects of item-nonresponse in surveys on the results of multivariate statistical analysis when estimation of productivity is the task. To multiply impute the missing data a data augmentation algorithm based on a normal/Wishart model is applied. Data of the German IAB Establishment Panel from waves 2000 and 2001 are used to estimate the establishment’s productivity. T...

This paper tries to analyze Chinese three types of bank’s efficiency changes and differences, after the financial crisis, through the integrated use of DEA and super efficiency DEA method. The results show that: the efficiency of Chinese commercial Banks in general is on the rise, the comprehensive technical efficiency growth stems mainly from scale efficiency improvement, pure technical effici...

The efficiency literature, both using parametric and non-parametric methods, has been focusing mainly on cost efficiency analysis rather than on profit efficiency. In for-profit organisations, however, the measurement of profit efficiency and its decomposition into technical and allocative efficiency is particularly relevant. In this paper a newly developed method is used to measure profit effi...