Price floors and technical inefficiency in India's sugar processing industry
研究了印度政府按工厂制糖效率设定甘蔗价格下限的政策，发现该政策导致私营和国有企业技术效率降低，而合作社效率最高，并估算了由此造成的福利损失。
Abstract In India, cane is processed into sugar by cooperatives, public enterprises, and private (for‐profit) firms. The Indian government sets a unique floor price for each processor that is increasing in the firm's effectiveness in converting cane into sugar. The floor price binds for public and private firms but not for cooperatives, which rebate profits to members. We argue that this price floor policy creates a disincentive for private and public firms to be technically efficient in converting cane to sugar. In support of this hypothesis an analysis of 593 Indian sugar factories from 1992 to 2007 reveals statistically significant differences in technical efficiency, with cooperatives being the most efficient and public firms least efficient. We estimate welfare losses due to the technical inefficiency attributable to the price‐floor policy and argue that it can be eliminated by enacting policy to base price floors upon quality of the cane input received by a factory.