Technical and scale efficiency of crop and livestock farms in Poland: does specialization matter?
使用数据包络分析研究波兰农场在转型期（1996和2000年）的技术效率和规模效率，发现畜牧农场平均效率高于作物农场，且技术无效率主要源于管理不善而非规模问题。
Abstract The technical and scale efficiency of Polish farms is analyzed using data envelopment analysis. Efficiency differences are measured according to farm specialization, in crop or livestock, at two points in time during transition, 1996 and 2000. The efficiency results are reviewed in light of confidence intervals provided by bootstrapping. Livestock farms are found to be, on average, more technically and scale efficient than crop farms. Scale efficiency is high for both specializations. Technical inefficiency appears mostly to be due to “pure technical” rather than “scale” inefficiency, and thus attributable to inefficient management practices. The evidence suggests that the low‐educational attainment of people engaged in agriculture is one important reason for these inefficient practices. In 2000, 64% of livestock farms and 86% of crop farms were operating under increasing returns to scale. Improvements in the land lease legislation and changes to the policy support to farmers' pensions could stimulate the land market and remove the incentives to keep a fragmented operational structure.