Changes in the Efficiency of Agricultural Production in Asian Countries

This research presents a framework to describe and analyze data from 14 Asian countries' are used to form the cross-sectional units over the period 1961-2004 with emphasis on the agricultural sector in order to examine technical efficiencies by estimated using the stochastic frontier production function approach. A translog production function was used to represent the gross production of agriculture in selected countries. The results show that the estimated elasticity of gross production with respect to labor is 0.61 compared to 0.21 in case of with time trend but labor appears to be the most important factor of gross production. This means that for a 10% increase in the number of labor, gross production will increase by 6.1%. For estimated stochastic frontier model in case of with time trend or technical change, the input elasticity for land slightly decreased to 0.47. However, land elasticity of 0.47 is the highest effective component to increase gross production in Asian countries.