Hansson, Helena
- Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Abstract
Inefficiency in agricultural production is generally interpreted as waste in the use of production factors. We challenge this by (i) providing an explanation for why apparent inefficiency may result, at least partly, from rational production decisions by farmers and (ii) testing this rational inefficiency hypothesis empirically. Based on multidirectional efficiency analysis of production data from 2013 for 421 Swedish dairy farms and statistical analyses of the inefficiency patterns, we provide support for the existence of rational inefficiency. These findings have clear implications for policy schemes aiming at pushing farms towards the efficient production frontier.
Keywords
dairy farms; non-use values; rational inefficiency; use values; multidirectional efficiency analysis (MEA)
Published in
European Review of Agricultural Economics
2020, volume: 47, number: 1, pages: 1-24
SLU Authors
Manevska Tasevska, Gordana
- Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
UKÄ Subject classification
Economics
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/erae/jby042
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/97935