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Technical Efficiency and Public Policies in Agriculture: An Analysis for the Eastern Amazon Region

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  • Juliana de Sales Silva

Abstract

The agricultural sector in one of the most dynamic industries of the Brazilian economy and is responsible for about 30% of the GDP of the state of Pará, located in the Brazilian Eastern Amazon region. This is mainly due to the public policies developed for the sector, with emphasis on the National Policy of Technical Assistance and Rural Extension (PNATER) and Rural Credit, in addition to conditional cash transfer programs such as Bolsa Família (Family Allowance). Given this scenario, the purpose of this research is to determine the technical efficiency of the agricultural rural facilities of Pará, and observe the effect of these policies on their inefficiency. The methodology employed in order to achieve these objectives is the stochastic frontier approach, and the data used was obtained from a special tabulation based on the 2006 Agricultural Census. The main results evidence that rural credit policies, social welfare programs, and technical support are important to reduce the technical inefficiency of the rural facilities of the State of Pará. The latter, however, is not statistically significant. Resumen El sector agrícola es uno de los más dinámicos de la economía brasilera y es responsable —aproximadamente— del 30% del PIB del estado de Pará, ubicado en la Amazonía oriental brasilera. Esto se debe —principalmente— a las políticas públicas desarrolladas para el sector, con énfasis en la Política Nacional de Asistencia Técnica y Extensión Rural (PNATER) y Crédito Rural, además de los programas condicionales de transferencia de efectivo, como Bolsa Familia. Ante este escenario, el objetivo de este artículo es determinar la eficiencia técnica de las instalaciones agrícolas rurales en Pará y observar el efecto de estas políticas en su ineficiencia. La metodología utilizada es el enfoque de la frontera estocástica Los datos utilizados se obtuvieron en una tabulación especial basada en el Censo Agrícola de 2006. Los principales resultados muestran que las políticas de crédito rural, los programas de asistencia social y el apoyo técnico son importantes para reducir la ineficiencia técnica de las instalaciones rurales en el Estado de Pará. Sin embargo, esta última no es estadísticamente significativa.

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  • Juliana de Sales Silva, 2021. "Technical Efficiency and Public Policies in Agriculture: An Analysis for the Eastern Amazon Region," Ensayos de Economía 19349, Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Medellín.
    • Handle: RePEc:col:000418:019349
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    File URL: https://revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/ede/article/view/89283
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    technical efficiency; Agriculture; stochastic production frontier; public policy; parametric; rural extension.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B22 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Macroeconomics
    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • Q12 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets

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