Productivity and farm size in Australian agriculture: Reinvestigating the returns to scale

Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics

Volumn 59, Issue 1, 2015, Pages 16-38

  Sheng, Yu ^a   Zhao, Shiji ^a   Nossal, Katarina ^b   Zhang, Dandan ^c  

^a NATIONAL HEALTH AND MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL   (Australia)

^b Palais des Nations   (Switzerland)

^c PEKING UNIVERSITY   (China)

Author keywords

Agricultural productivity; Australian broadacre agriculture; Returns to scale size; Technological progress

Indexed keywords

EID: 84920548267     PISSN: 1364985X     EISSN: 14678489     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8489.12063     Document Type: Article

References (43)

1. ABARES (2004). Australian Beef Industry Productivity, Australian Beef 04.2, Canberra, November.
2. ABARES (2012). Australian Commodity Statistics, ABARES, December 2012, Canberra.
3. Arellano, M. and Bond, S. (1991). Some tests of specification for panel data: Monte Carlo evidence and an application to employment equations, Review of Economic Studies 58, 277-297.
4. Basu, S. (2008). Returns to scale measurement, in Durlauf, S.N. and Blume, L.E. (eds), The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd edn. The Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
5. Basu, S. and Fernald, J.G. (1997). Returns to scale in U.S. production: estimates and implications, Journal of Political Economy 105, 249-283.
6. Boussemart, J.P., Briecy, W., Peypoch, N. and Tavera, C. (2006). Characterizing strictly increasing and decreasing returns to scale in multi-output production technologies, Management Science 34, 1507-1511.
7. Chambers, R. (1984). Some Conceptual Issues in Measuring Economies of Size, Economics of Size Studies. Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, Iowa State University, Ames, IA.
8. Chavas, J.P. (2001). Structural change in agricultural production: economics, technology and policy, in Gardner, B. and Rausser, G. (eds), Handbook in Agricultural Economics, Vol. 1. Elsevier Science, Amsterdam, pp. 263-285.
9. Chavas, J.P. (2008). On the economics of agricultural production, Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 52, 365-380.
10. Davies, L. (2005). Using DSEs and carrying capacities to compare beef enterprises, NSW Department of Primary Industries. Available from URL: www.agric.nsw.gov.au/reader/beefbudinfo/dse-carrying-capacity.htm [accessed 10 Mar 212].
11. Diewert, W.E. and Fox, K. (2010). Malmquist and Tornqvist productivity indexes: returns to scale and technical progress with imperfect competition, Journal of Econometrics 101, 73-95.
12. Ellis, F. (2000). Rural Livelihoods and Diversity in Developing Countries. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
13. Elteto, O. and Koves, P. (1964). [On an index number computation problem in international comparison], Statisztikai Szemle 42, 507-518 (in Hungarian).
14. Färe, R. and Mitchell, T. (1995). Multiple outputs and 'homotheticity', Southern Economic Journal 60, 287-296.
15. Făre, R. (1988). Fundamentals of Production Theories. Springer-Verlag, Berllin.
16. Frisch, R. (1965). Theory of Production. Rand-McNally, Chicago, IL.
17. Gleeson, T., McDonald, D., Hooper, S. and Martin, P. (2003). Australian Beef Industry 2003. Canberra, ABARE Research Report 03.3.
18. Greene, W. (2008). Econometric Analysis, 7th edn. New York University, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
19. Gregg, G. and Rolfe, J. (2010). Identifying sources and trends for productivity growth in a sample of Queensland broadacre beef enterprises, Animal Production Science 51, 443-453.
20. Griliches, Z. (1957). Hybrid Corn: An exploration in the economics of technological change, Econometrica 25, 501-522.
21. Hallam, A. (1991). Economies of size and scale in agriculture: an interpretive review of empirical measurement, Review of Agricultural Economics 13, 155-172.
22. Hanoch, G. (1975). The elasticity of scale and the shape of average costs, American Economic Review 65, 492-497.
23. Hooper, S., Martin, P., Love, G. and Fisher, B. (2002). Farm size and productivity: where are the trends taking us? Australian Commodities 9, 495-500.
24. Hughes, N., Lawson, K., Davidson, A., Jackson, T. and Sheng, Y. (2012). Productivity: where are the trends taking us?, Australian Commodities 19, 495-500.
25. Kim, H.Y. (1992). The translog production function and variable returns to scale, The Review of Economics and Statistics 74, 546-552.
26. Knopke, P., Strappazzon, L. and Mullen, J. (1995). Productivity growth: total factor productivity on Australian broadacre farms, Australian Commodities 2, 486-497.
27. Knopke, P., O'Donnell, V. and Shepherd, A. (2000). Productivity Growth in the Australian Grains Industry. ABARE, Canberra.
28. Lawrence, G. and Williams, C. (1990). Productivity growth: total factor productivity on Australian broadacre farms, in Cullen, T., Dunn, P. and Lawrence, G. (eds), Rural Health and Welfare in Australia. Centre for Rural Welfare Research, Charles Stuart University, Wagga Wagga, pp. 38-59.
29. McClelland, J.W., Wetzstein, M.E. and Musser, W.N. (1988). Returns to scale and size in agricultural economics, Western Journal of Agricultural Economics 11, 129-133.
30. Millear, G., Conway, A. and Mills, T. (2003). Calculating a Gross Margin for Sheep, Goat and Cattle Enterprises. Brisbane, Queensland Government: Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries. Retrieved 2006-10-18.
31. Mullen, J.D. (2007). Productivity growth and the returns from public investment in R&D in Australian broadacre agriculture, Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 51, 359-384.
32. Mundlak, Y. (2005). Economic growth: lessons from two centuries of American agriculture, Journal of Economic Literature 43, 989-1024.
33. Nossal, K. and Sheng, Y. (2008). Productivity in the beef cattle and slaughter lamb industries. ABARES Research Report for Australian Meat and Livestock Association, Canberra, ABARE Report No. 08.13.
34. Nossal, K. and Sheng, Y. (2010). Productivity growth: trends, drivers and opportunities for broadacre and dairy industries, Australian Commodities 17, 216-230.
35. Nossal, K., Zhao, S., Sheng, Y. and Gunasekera, D. (2009). Productivity movements in Australian agriculture, Australian Commodities 16, 206-216.
36. O'Donnell, C.J. (2010). Measuring and decomposing agricultural productivity and profitability change, Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 54, 527-560.
37. OECD (2012). Cross country analysis of farm performance. Working Party on Agricultural and Markets, TAD/CA/AMP/WP(2012)20, Paris.
38. Productivity Commission (2005). Trends in Australian agriculture. Canberra, Productivity Commission Research Paper, Commonwealth of Australia.
39. Short, C., Chester, C., Berry, P. and Elliston, L. (2007). Australian food industry: performance and competitiveness, Australian Commodities 14, 221-226.
40. Szulc, B. (1964). Index numbers of multilateral regional comparisons, Przeglad Statysticzny 3, 239-254 (in Polish).
41. Townsend, R.F., Kirsten, J. and Vink, N. (1998). Farm size, productivity and returns to scale in agriculture revisited: a case study of wine producers in South Africa, Agricultural Economics 19, 175-180.
42. Windmeijer, F. (2005). A finite sample correction for the variance of linear efficient two-step GMM estimators, Journal of Econometrics 126, 25-51.
43. Zhao, S., Sheng, Y. and Kee, H.J. (2010) Exploring determinants of the total factor productivity in Australia's broadacre grain farms, ABARES Working Paper presented to the Australian Conference of Economists 2010.