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Scale Economies and Efficiency in U.S. Agriculture: Are Traditional Farms History?

The structural transformation of agriculture in recent decades has raised serious concerns about the future of the family farm. This study examines the economic performance of U.S. farms, to explore the potential of smaller farms to compete with larger entities, and ultimately to survive in this rap...

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Published in:Journal of productivity analysis 2004-11, Vol.22 (3), p.185-205
Main Authors: PAUL, CATHERINE MORRISON, Paul, Catherine, NEHRING, RICHARD, BANKER, DAVID, SOMWARU, AGAPI
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Language:English
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cited_by cdi_FETCH-LOGICAL-c356t-b6a712b338ddcfc63286617ccc91241ae60677c6825b6ecdeec561966e01378f3
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creator PAUL, CATHERINE MORRISON
Paul, Catherine
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description The structural transformation of agriculture in recent decades has raised serious concerns about the future of the family farm. This study examines the economic performance of U.S. farms, to explore the potential of smaller farms to compete with larger entities, and ultimately to survive in this rapidly changing environment. We use deterministic and stochastic frontier methods and survey data to measure and evaluate factors underlying scale economies (SEC) and efficiency (SEF) of corn-belt farms for 1996-2001. Our results suggest that family farms are both scale and technically inefficient. Potential for the exploitation of significant scale and scope economies, and some greater technical efficiency, seem to be driving trends toward increased farm size and dwindling competitiveness of the small family farm.
doi_str_mv 10.1007/s11123-004-7573-1
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source Business Source Ultimate; ABI/INFORM global; JSTOR Archival Journals and Primary Sources Collection; EconLit with Full Text; Springer Nature
subjects Agriculture
Commercial production
Corn
Crop economics
Crops
Data envelopment analysis
Econometrics
Economic efficiency
Economic models
Economic theory
Economics
Economies of scale
Efficiency metrics
Elasticity
Family farms
Family owned businesses
Farm economics
Farmers
Farms
Productivity
Stochastic models
Studies
Trends
title Scale Economies and Efficiency in U.S. Agriculture: Are Traditional Farms History?
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