Methodologies for Comparisons of Agricultural Output, Input, and Productivity: A Review and Synthesis

The paper presents a review of the methodological state-of-the-art in interspatial and intertemporal productivity measurement. An overview of productivity and efficiency concepts precedes a technical discussion of the two approaches currently existing in evaluating bilateral and multilateral productivity. The accounting or nonparametric approach, which relies on index number methods, provides measures of relative efficiency based on prices and quantities of outputs and inputs. The selection of a particular index number formula for multilateral comparisons of productivity growth should satisfy a priori axioms. In contrast, if sufficient data are available, the parametric or statistical approach can be used to estimate the production technology and to obtain more diverse comparisons than those from accounting procedures. Both approaches depend on developing comparable data sets, while data requirements are dictated by the amount of disaggregation desired.