IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aaea14/170225.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Technical Change, Efficiency, and Total Factor Productivity in U.S. Agriculture

Author

Listed:
  • Sabasi, Darlington
  • Shumway, C. Richard

Abstract

This article examines factors driving technical change, technical efficiency, and scale and mix efficiency – all components of total factor productivity – in U.S. agriculture. We use economic theory and previous literature to identify explanatory variables affecting each component and examine some potentially important factors which have received less attention in the literature. Results show that technical change comes primarily from increased innovation through public research and from improvements in human capital. Technical efficiency is driven by farm size and the ratio of family to total labor, while scale and mix efficiency is driven mainly by agro-climatic conditions, weather, and farm size.

Suggested Citation

  • Sabasi, Darlington & Shumway, C. Richard, 2014. "Technical Change, Efficiency, and Total Factor Productivity in U.S. Agriculture," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 170225, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aaea14:170225
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.170225
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/170225/files/Technical%20Change_%20Efficiency_%20and%20Total%20Factor%20Productivity%20Growth%20in%20U.S.%20Agriculture.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.170225?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alan McCunn & Wallace E. Huffman, 2000. "Convergence in U.S. Productivity Growth for Agriculture: Implications of Interstate Research Spillovers for Funding Agricultural Research," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 82(2), pages 370-388.
    2. Fuglie, Keith O. & MacDonald, James C. & Ball, V. Eldon, 2007. "Productivity Growth in U.S. Agriculture," Economic Brief 6382, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    3. Fuglie, Keith O., 2007. "Productivity Drives Growth in U.S. Agriculture," Amber Waves:The Economics of Food, Farming, Natural Resources, and Rural America, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, pages 1-1, September.
    4. Julian M. Alston & Matthew A. Andersen & Jennifer S. James & Philip G. Pardey, 2011. "The Economic Returns to U.S. Public Agricultural Research," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 93(5), pages 1257-1277.
    5. Vernon W. Ruttan, 2002. "Productivity Growth in World Agriculture: Sources and Constraints," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(4), pages 161-184, Fall.
    6. Yucan Liu & C. Richard Shumway & Robert Rosenman & Virgil Eldon Ball, 2011. "Productivity growth and convergence in US agriculture: new cointegration panel data results," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(1), pages 91-102.
    7. Huffman, Wallace E., 2009. "Measuring Public Agricultural Research Capital and Its Contribution to State Agricultural Productivity," Working Papers 55845, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    8. Mullen, John D., 2007. "Productivity Growth and the Returns from Public Investment in R&D in Australian Broadacre Agriculture," 2007 Conference (51st), February 13-16, 2007, Queenstown, New Zealand 9451, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    9. Bervejillo, Jose E. & Alston, Julian M. & Tumber, Kabir P., 2011. "The Economic Returns to Public Agricultural Research in Uruguay," Working Papers 162518, Robert Mondavi Institute Center for Wine Economics.
    10. Yee, Jet & Ahearn, Mary Clare & Huffman, Wallace, 2004. "Links among Farm Productivity, Off-Farm Work, and Farm Size in the Southeast," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 36(3), pages 591-603, December.
    11. Huffman, Wallace E. & Orazem, Peter F., 2004. "The Role of Agriculture and Human Capital in Economic Growth: Farmers, Schooling, and Health," Working Papers 18202, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    12. Alejandro Plastina & Lilyan Fulginiti, 2012. "Rates of return to public agricultural research in 48 US states," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 95-113, April.
    13. Wallace E. Huffman & Robert E. Evenson, 2006. "Do Formula or Competitive Grant Funds Have Greater Impacts on State Agricultural Productivity?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 88(4), pages 783-798.
    14. Catherine Paul & Richard Nehring & David Banker & Agapi Somwaru, 2004. "Scale Economies and Efficiency in U.S. Agriculture: Are Traditional Farms History?," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 185-205, November.
    15. Bryce Stewart & Terrence Veeman & James Unterschultz, 2009. "Crops and Livestock Productivity Growth in the Prairies: The Impacts of Technical Change and Scale," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 57(3), pages 379-394, September.
    16. Jet Yee & Mary Clare Ahearn, 2005. "Government policies and farm size: does the size concept matter?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(19), pages 2231-2238.
    17. Wolfram Schlenker & W. Michael Hanemann & Anthony C. Fisher, 2006. "The Impact of Global Warming on U.S. Agriculture: An Econometric Analysis of Optimal Growing Conditions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(1), pages 113-125, February.
    18. Malte Reimers & Stephan Klasen, 2013. "Revisiting the Role of Education for Agricultural Productivity," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 95(1), pages 131-152.
    19. Hausman, Jerry, 2015. "Specification tests in econometrics," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 38(2), pages 112-134.
    20. Songqing Jin & Hengyun Ma & Jikun Huang & Ruifa Hu & Scott Rozelle, 2010. "Productivity, efficiency and technical change: measuring the performance of China’s transforming agriculture," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 33(3), pages 191-207, June.
    21. Mullen, John D., 2007. "Productivity growth and the returns from public investment in R&D in Australian broadacre agriculture," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 51(4), pages 1-26.
    22. Timo Kuosmanen & Timo Sipiläinen, 2009. "Exact decomposition of the Fisher ideal total factor productivity index," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 137-150, June.
    23. Alston, Julian M. & Craig, Barbara J. & Pardey, Philip G., 1998. "Dynamics in the creation and depreciation of knowledge, and the returns to research:," EPTD discussion papers 35, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    24. Michael J. Roberts & Wolfram Schlenker & Jonathan Eyer, 2013. "Agronomic Weather Measures in Econometric Models of Crop Yield with Implications for Climate Change," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 95(2), pages 236-243.
    25. Eldon Ball & David Schimmelpfennig & Sun Ling Wang, 2013. "Is U.S. Agricultural Productivity Growth Slowing?," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 35(3), pages 435-450.
    26. V. Eldon Ball & Frank M. Gollop & Alison Kelly-Hawke & Gregory P. Swinand, 1999. "Patterns of State Productivity Growth in the U.S. Farm Sector: Linking State and Aggregate Models," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 81(1), pages 164-179.
    27. Fuglie, Keith O. & Heisey, Paul W., 2007. "Economic Returns to Public Agricultural Research," Economic Brief 6388, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    28. Maria L. Loureiro, 2009. "Farmers' health and agricultural productivity," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 40(4), pages 381-388, July.
    29. Chen, Adam Zhuo & Huffman, Wallace E. & Rozelle, Scott, 2003. "Technical Efficiency Of Chinese Grain Production: A Stochastic Production Frontier Approach," 2003 Annual meeting, July 27-30, Montreal, Canada 22116, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    30. Olivier Deschênes & Michael Greenstone, 2007. "The Economic Impacts of Climate Change: Evidence from Agricultural Output and Random Fluctuations in Weather," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 354-385, March.
    31. John Mullen, 2007. "Productivity growth and the returns from public investment in R&D in Australian broadacre agriculture," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 51(4), pages 359-384, December.
    32. Weiming Tian & Guang Wan, 2000. "Technical Efficiency and Its Determinants in China's Grain Production," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 159-174, March.
    33. Bruce A. McCarl & Xavier Villavicencio & Ximing Wu, 2008. "Climate Change and Future Analysis: Is Stationarity Dying?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1241-1247.
    34. Capalbo, Susan Marie, 1988. "Measuring The Components Of Aggregate Productivity Growth In U.S. Agriculture," Western Journal of Agricultural Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10, July.
    35. V. Eldon Ball & Jean-Christophe Bureau & Richard Nehring & Agapi Somwaru, 1997. "Agricultural Productivity Revisited," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 79(4), pages 1045-1063.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. A. Wondemu Kifle, 2016. "Working Paper 237 - Decomposing Sources of Productivity Change in Small-Scale Farming in Ethiopia," Working Paper Series 2332, African Development Bank.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wang, Sun Ling & Ball, V. Eldon & Fulginiti, Lilyan E. & Plastina, Alejandro S., 2012. "Benefits of Public R&D in U.S. Agriculture: Spill-Ins, Extension, and Roads," 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil 126368, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    2. Eric Njuki & Boris E Bravo-Ureta & Christopher J O’Donnell, 2018. "A new look at the decomposition of agricultural productivity growth incorporating weather effects," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(2), pages 1-21, February.
    3. Pardey, Philip G. & Alston, Julian M. & Ruttan, Vernon W., 2010. "The Economics of Innovation and Technical Change in Agriculture," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 939-984, Elsevier.
    4. Bryce Stewart & Terrence Veeman & James Unterschultz, 2009. "Crops and Livestock Productivity Growth in the Prairies: The Impacts of Technical Change and Scale," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 57(3), pages 379-394, September.
    5. Andersen, Matthew A., 2019. "Knowledge productivity and the returns to agricultural research: a review," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 63(2), April.
    6. Sansi Yang & C. Richard Shumway, 2020. "Knowledge accumulation in US agriculture: research and learning by doing," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 87-105, December.
    7. Ricardo de Avillez, 2011. "A Detailed Analysis of the Productivity Performance of the Canadian Primary Agriculture Sector," CSLS Research Reports 2011-06, Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
    8. Jin, Yu & Huffman, Wallace E., 2013. "Reduced U.S. Funding of Public Agricultural Research and Extension Risks Lowering Future Agricultural Productivity Growth Prospects," Staff General Research Papers Archive 36796, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    9. Wang, Sun Ling & Hoppe, Robert A & Hertz, Thomas & Xu, Shicong, 2022. "Farm Labor, Human Capital, and Agricultural Productivity in the United States," Economic Research Report 327178, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    10. Yucan Liu & C. Richard Shumway & Robert Rosenman & Virgil Eldon Ball, 2011. "Productivity growth and convergence in US agriculture: new cointegration panel data results," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(1), pages 91-102.
    11. Eric Njuki & Boris E. Bravo-Ureta & Christopher J. O’Donnell, 2019. "Decomposing agricultural productivity growth using a random-parameters stochastic production frontier," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 839-860, September.
    12. Chen, Shuai & Gong, Binlei, 2021. "Response and adaptation of agriculture to climate change: Evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    13. Anubhab Pattanayak & K. S. Kavi Kumar, 2014. "Weather Sensitivity Of Rice Yield: Evidence From India," Climate Change Economics (CCE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 5(04), pages 1-24.
    14. Wallace E. Huffman & Yu Jin & Zheng Xu, 2018. "The economic impacts of technology and climate change: New evidence from U.S. corn yields," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 49(4), pages 463-479, July.
    15. Kingwell, Ross, 2018. "The Rationale for Taxpayer Support for Primary Industry Research and Innovation in Western Australia," Working Papers 274837, University of Western Australia, School of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    16. Subhadra Banda, 2013. "The Case of Slum Rehabilitation in Delhi," Working Papers id:5522, eSocialSciences.
    17. Chavas, Jean-Paul, 2008. "On the economics of agricultural production," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 54(4), pages 1-16.
    18. Jonathan Mendonça dos Santos & Ricardo Francischini & Veridiana Cardozo Gonçalves Cantão & Raquel de Sousa Neta & Charles Barbosa Santos & Rose Luiza Moraes Tavares & Kamila Lobato Moraes & Jordana, 2024. "Economic Feasibility of Management of Fertilization in the Soybean-Corn System Cultivated in Succession," Journal of Agricultural Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 15(2), pages 1-71, April.
    19. Gong, Binlei, 2020. "Agricultural productivity convergence in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    20. Wang, Sun Ling & Heisey, Paul & Schimmelpfennig, David & Ball, Eldon, 2015. "Agricultural Productivity Growth in the United States: Measurement, Trends, and Drivers," Economic Research Report 207954, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Agricultural and Food Policy; Production Economics; Productivity Analysis;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:aaea14:170225. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.