Authors: Evangelia Pappa, Anthony Rezitis

Title: Analyzing agricultural productivity change: Panel data evidence for EU countries

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the productivity change of European agriculture from to 2004 to 2017. The Malmquist productivity index is employed to measure changes in productivity with respect to its assembling components; namely technical change and technical efficiency change. We further extend the non-parametric estimates assessing scale efficiency and pure technical efficiency. The data used in this study were extracted from the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) for the EU-28 Member States forming an unbalanced panel dataset of 350 observations. Agriculture productivity is measured using two outputs and five inputs. Output variables include crops and livestock and input variables include labor, land, materials, livestock units and capital. The results shed light on agricultural productivity across EU Member States and over time. Policy implications and managerial practices are proposed regarding improving agriculture performance.

Keywords: Total factor productivity, Malmquist Index, Agriculture

JEL classifications: D24, Q10, O13, C33.