Graduate Work
Ph.D. Dissertation
Efficiency in Agricultural Production: The Case of Olive-Growing Farms in Greece
Abstract:
The principal aim of this thesis is to analyze economic (technical and
allocative) efficiency and its contribution to total production growth
of olive-growing farms operating in each of the four most productive regions
of Greece as well as to assess the role of household endowments in explaining
farmer differences in efficiency levels. Drawing from the relevant literature,
a stochastic frontier system consisting of a homothetic translog production
frontier and the first-order conditions for profit maximization has been
developed providing individual and statistically validated measures of
technical and allocative efficiency independent of distributional assumptions.
The production frontier has been estimated from the data obtained from
a sample of 125 randomly drawn olive-growing farms in Greece on annual
basis for the period 1987-1993. The data were extracted from a survey
undertaken by the Institute of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology,
financed by the Greek Ministry of Agriculture, whose purpose was to estimate
production costs for major agricultural products throughout Greece. Particularly,
the present thesis attempts to extend previous literature in four ways:
first, technical and allocative efficiency measures independent of distributional
assumptions are obtained through the FGLS and LSDV estimation of the production
frontier system; second, time-variant and farm specific measures of allocative
efficiency, separated from random errors, are obtained using the second
step procedure proposed by Cornwell et al., (1990); third, Bravo-Ureta
and Rieger (1991) and Bravo-Ureta and Evenson (1994) procedure is adopted
to provide overall allocative efficiency measures in the use of all inputs,
with input prices used as weights; forth, based on Bauer's (1990c) total
factor productivity decomposition analysis, which is adjusted accordingly
into an output growth formulation, we incorporate in an integrated manner
the scale and the allocative efficiency effects in the existing output
growth decomposition analysis framework.
Committee:
Prof. P. Midmore (University of Wales, Aberystwyth, UK, Advisor)
Lecturer N. Perdikis (University of Wales, Aberystwyth, UK)
Prof. D. Hallam (University of Reading, UK)
M.Sc. Thesis
Regional Economic Modelling: An Intersectoral Analysis of the Cretan Economy
Abstract:
In the present study the Input-Output approach was used to identify the
most important and dynamic sectors of the Cretan economy. Two techniques,
the Supply-Demand Pool (SDP) technique and the Generation of Regional
Input-Output Tables (GRIT) procedure were followed for estimating of the
regional Input-Output tables. In addition, different sectoral indicators
were computed to assess the relative significance of a particular sector.
The results suggest that the joint development of Tourism and Agro-Food
would promote economic growth in the local economy of Crete and moderate
the expected consequences from a further employment decline in Agriculture,
since their backward linkages with other local industries are very strong
and their size in terms of final sales is relatively high. Moreover, an
attempt was made to compare the estimates when different non-survey techniques
(SDP and GRIT) are employed and it was found that regardless of the applied
technique almost the same judgment is derived on sector's potential to
generate output, employment or income stimulus to the regional economy.
Committee:
Prof. K. Mattas (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, Advisor)
Lecturer D. Psaltopoulos (University of Patras, Greece)
Prof. C. Shrestha (Penn State University, USA)