Transformations  in
Business & Economics

ON MEASURES OF THE AGRICULTURAL EFFICIENCY - A REVIEW
Tomas Balezentis

ABSTRACT.The paper aims to discuss the theoretical preliminaries of the efficiency measurement (benchmarking) and presenting a survey on manifestations of suchlike analyses in the agricultural economics. The definitions of efficiency and measures thereof are presented and followed by description of the mathematical models for efficiency measurement. The paper particularly focuses on data envelopment analysis and stochastic frontier analysis which are the two celebrated methods for analysis of the productive efficiency. The scientometric analysis was carried out in order to fathom the current trends of frontier benchmarking in agriculture. The literature survey on the latter issue is also presented. The Lithuanian agricultural sector still facing the consequences of post-communist transformations should be analysed by the means of frontier measures to a higher extent. The discussed methods and research frameworks would certainly increase the effectiveness of the strategic management decisions.

KEYWORDS: efficiency, agriculture, frontier techniques, data envelopment analysis, stochastic frontier analysis.

JEL classification: C14, C40, Q10.