Soumendra N. Ghosh

A Generalized Production Frontier Approach for Estimating Determinants of Inefficiency in U.S. Dairy Farms

This article investigates farm-level efficiency of U.S. dairy farmers by estimating their technical and allocative efficiency. Technical inefficiency is assumed to be composed of a deterministic component that is a function of some farm-specific characteristics and a random component. By doing this we extend the stochastic frontier methodology in which determinants of technicial inefficiency are explicitly introduced in the model. Given the inputs, variations in efficiency of farms are then explained by both deterministic and random components of technical inefficiency. The empirical results indicate that (a) levels of education of the farmer are important factors determining technical inefficiency and (b) large farms are more efficient (technically) than small and medium-sized farms. Both technical and allocative inefficiency are found to decrease with increase in the level of education of the farmer.

Macroeconomic adjustments for debt-laden economies: The central American experience

Abstract In this article we formulate a simple economic model to analyze the effects of changes in the money supply, the national government deficit, and the exchange rate, on foreign debt and the debt-income ratio of four Central American countries: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. The model was estimated using annual data from 1960 to 1992. Our results indicate that currency devaluation, contractionary monetary policy, and national government deficits financed through foreign aid, lead to lower debt and debt-income ratios.

Structural changes in the US electric utility industry and the scarcity rent of coal in-use

Previous studies show that environmental regulations have caused significant decline in productivity and increases in the cost of electricity generation for the US coal-fired electric utilities. No analysis, thus far, measures the effect of such productivity decline on the scarcity rent of coal in-use. This paper shows that due to environmental regulations the basic cost structure of the coal-fired electric utilities have undergone a structural change resulting in increases in the scarcity rent of coal in-use.

Environmental Concerns and Resource Scarcity: The Case of Coal

Traditional measures of resource scarcity have primarily been concerned with the extraction and use of a single natural resource. The relationship between the concurrent use of environmental and extractible resources has attracted little attention. In this article, a conceptual measure of resource scarcity under conditions of simultaneous joint use is developed. This measure includes previously derived indices as special cases. An empirical measure of scarcity under conditions of joint use is derived for coal and air using a translog reproducible cost function. Results suggest that existing environmental regulations have effectively increased the scarcity rent of coal in-use.