Agricultural & Resource Economics Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2739
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Item THE ROLE OF SOILS IN PRODUCTION: AGGREGATION, SEPARABILITY, AND YIELD DECOMPOSITION IN KENYAN AGRICULTURE(2015) Pieralli, Simone; Chambers, Robert G; Agricultural and Resource Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Agricultural production relies on soils. Increasing global population and the impact of climate change threaten the sustainability of soil for agricultural production. For these reasons, it is necessary to broaden present current methodological approaches to incorporating soil into economic analysis. The first essay proposes a methodology to aggregate quantitative soil characteristics through the use of separability theory in a Data Envelopment Analysis framework. This yields an aggregate soil-quality measure that appropriately aggregates soil characteristics. The application is to Kenyan maize farmers. The second essay develops a nonparametric statistical test of structural separability based on a bias correction of a central limit theorem for Data Envelopment Analysis estimators developed in Kneip, Simar and Wilson (2015a). The proposed nonparametric test for structural separability adapts the statistical procedures to test technology restrictions present in Kneip, Simar and Wilson (2015b). Monte Carlo experiments determine the size and power properties of the proposed test. An empirical analysis of Kenyan household farmers illustrates the use of the methodology. Global needs for higher agricultural production require understanding whether the frequently noted inverse land size-yield relationship is a true empirical regularity or an artifact of data collection methods. To examine this relationship, the third essay of this dissertation generalizes productivity decomposition methods to incorporate the quantification of a soil-productivity contribution. The generalized method decomposes a yield index into separate components attributable to (1) efficiency, (2) soil quality, (3) land size, (4) variable inputs, (5) capital inputs, and (6) output mix. Nonparametric productivity accounting methods are used to decompose the inverse land size-yield relationship in a multi-output representation of the technology without specific assumptions on returns to scale. A strongly significant inverse land size-yield relationship is present among Kenyan farmers.Item Self-regulation, productivity, and nonlinear pricing. Three essays on quality production in agricultural markets(2006-05-16) Zago, Angelo; Chambers, Robert G.; Agricultural and Resource Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In this dissertation I analyze the quality choices of a group of producers. In the first essay I use mechanism design to study the interaction of asymmetric information and the democratic process in the quality choices of a group of heterogeneous producers facing an opportunity to gain from establishing a reputation for their quality products. I find an asymmetry in the possible equilibria between the high and the low quality majorities. The quality level provided by the group with a low quality majority is lower than the first best, and the minority producers get rents. With high quality majority, if demand and group conditions are favourable, the quality level provided by the group is higher than the first best and the minority's type left with rents. Otherwise, the quality level provided by the group is first best and no rents are left to the low-quality producers in the minority. The second essay proposes a methodology to measure the characteristics of intermediate products when quality is multidimensional. It uses a general representation of the multioutput technology via directional distance functions and constructs quality indicators based on differences. The quality indicators may be used to evaluate firms' output taking into account the whole set of quality attributes. I explore the relationships among the different quality attributes and the yields by a systematic investigation of the disposability properties of the technology. In addition, I show how aggregate quality may vary with the production level. The third essay designs an optimal payment system for a group of producers implementing it empirically. In the essay I show how to implement the first best through higher prices for better quality commodities, deriving the optimal pricing schedule. I take into account producers' heterogeneity by modelling inefficiency and illustrating how technical efficiency interacts with producers' ability to produce output for a given level of inputs and hence affects revenues. The technology and the technical efficiency of producers are then estimated with a stochastic production function model. The estimation results are then used to simulate the pricing scheme.