IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zbw/espost/337412.html

To specialize or not to specialize? - A technical efficiency analysis in three transition economies

Author

Listed:
  • Djuraeva, Mukhayyo
  • Bobojonov, Ihtiyor
  • Kuhn, Lena

Abstract

We provide evidence on the recommendable crop allocation levels from a technical efficiency (TE) perspective, considering heterogeneous farming systems across regions and countries. Towards this aim, we employ a latent profile analysis to identify the main patterns of crop systems among a random sample of 2,830 crop farms from Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and Uzbekistan. Using a stochastic frontier analysis, we calculate TE scores for the identified crop profiles to examine the relationship between diversification portfolios and TE. We find that, on average, diversified crop profiles exhibit the highest TE scores, particularly those with a greater emphasis on dual-season grain crops. Meanwhile, the specialized farm profile tends to show the lowest average TE score.

Suggested Citation

  • Djuraeva, Mukhayyo & Bobojonov, Ihtiyor & Kuhn, Lena, 2026. "To specialize or not to specialize? - A technical efficiency analysis in three transition economies," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 53(1), pages 177-213.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:337412
    DOI: 10.1093/erae/jbaf052
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/337412/1/Djuraeva_2026_technical_efficiency_analysis.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1093/erae/jbaf052?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kuhn, Lena & Bobojonov, Ihtiyor, 2023. "The role of risk rationing in rural credit demand and uptake: lessons from Kyrgyzstan," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 83(1), pages 1-20.
    2. repec:hal:journl:hal-03675565 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Christensen, Laurits R & Jorgenson, Dale W & Lau, Lawrence J, 1973. "Transcendental Logarithmic Production Frontiers," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 55(1), pages 28-45, February.
    4. Schmidt, Peter & Lin, Tsai-Fen, 1984. "Simple tests of alternative specifications in stochastic frontier models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 349-361, March.
    5. World Bank, 2023. "Uzbekistan Public Expenditure Review, December 2022," World Bank Publications - Reports 39518, The World Bank Group.
    6. Amsler, Christine & Prokhorov, Artem & Schmidt, Peter, 2016. "Endogeneity in stochastic frontier models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 190(2), pages 280-288.
    7. Ellis,Frank, 1992. "Agricultural Policies in Developing Countries," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521395847, August.
    8. Michael Lokshin & Zurab Sajaia, 2004. "Maximum likelihood estimation of endogenous switching regression models," Stata Journal, StataCorp LLC, vol. 4(3), pages 282-289, September.
    9. Mélanie Jaeck & Robert Lifran, 2014. "Farmers’ Preferences for Production Practices: A Choice Experiment Study in the Rhone River Delta," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(1), pages 112-130, January.
    10. Llewelyn, Richard V. & Williams, Jeffery R., 1996. "Nonparametric analysis of technical, pure technical, and scale efficiencies for food crop production in East Java, Indonesia," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 15(2), pages 113-126, November.
    11. George Battese & Sumiter Broca, 1997. "Functional Forms of Stochastic Frontier Production Functions and Models for Technical Inefficiency Effects: A Comparative Study for Wheat Farmers in Pakistan," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 8(4), pages 395-414, November.
    12. Rahman, Sanzidur, 2009. "Whether crop diversification is a desired strategy for agricultural growth in Bangladesh?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 340-349, August.
    13. Alvarez, Antonio & Arias, Carlos, 2004. "Technical efficiency and farm size: a conditional analysis," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 30(3), pages 241-250, May.
    14. Kolawole Ogundari, 2013. "Crop diversification and technical efficiency in food crop production," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 40(3), pages 267-287, February.
    15. Niyazmetov, Davron & Soliev, Ilkhom & Theesfeld, Insa, 2021. "Ordered to volunteer? Institutional compatibility assessment of establishing agricultural cooperatives in Uzbekistan," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    16. Lajos Baráth & Imre Fertő & Štefan Bojnec, 2018. "Are farms in less favored areas less efficient?," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 49(1), pages 3-12, January.
    17. Purdy, Barry M. & Langemeier, Michael R. & Featherstone, Allen M., 1997. "Financial Performance, Risk, And Specialization," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 29(01), pages 1-13, July.
    18. Kolawole Ogundari, 2013. "Crop diversification and technical efficiency in food crop production," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 40(3), pages 267-287, February.
    19. Battese, George E. & Coelli, Tim J., 1988. "Prediction of firm-level technical efficiencies with a generalized frontier production function and panel data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 387-399, July.
    20. Greene, William H. & Hensher, David A., 2003. "A latent class model for discrete choice analysis: contrasts with mixed logit," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 681-698, September.
    21. Amer Ait Sidhoum & K Hervé Dakpo & Laure Latruffe, 2022. "Trade-offs between economic, environmental and social sustainability on farms using a latent class frontier efficiency model: Evidence for Spanish crop farms," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(1), pages 1-17, January.
    22. Rulon D. Pope & Richard Prescott, 1980. "Diversification in Relation to Farm Size and Other Socioeconomic Characteristics," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 62(3), pages 554-559.
    23. Kumbhakar,Subal C. & Wang,Hung-Jen & Horncastle,Alan P., 2015. "A Practitioner's Guide to Stochastic Frontier Analysis Using Stata," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107029514, August.
    24. Max Spoor, 1996. "Mongolia: Agrarian crisis in the transition to a market economy," Europe-Asia Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(4), pages 615-628.
    25. Salvatore Di Falco & Charles Perrings, 2003. "Crop Genetic Diversity, Productivity and Stability of Agroecosystems. A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 50(2), pages 207-216, May.
    26. Kumbhakar, Subal C & Ghosh, Soumendra & McGuckin, J Thomas, 1991. "A Generalized Production Frontier Approach for Estimating Determinants of Inefficiency in U.S. Dairy Farms," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 9(3), pages 279-286, July.
    27. Kumbhakar, Subal C. & Tsionas, Efthymios G., 2016. "The good, the bad and the technology: Endogeneity in environmental production models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 190(2), pages 315-327.
    28. Sherlund, Shane M. & Barrett, Christopher B. & Adesina, Akinwumi A., 2002. "Smallholder technical efficiency controlling for environmental production conditions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 85-101, October.
    29. Antonio Alvarez & Julio del Corral, 2010. "Identifying different technologies using a latent class model: extensive versus intensive dairy farms," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 37(2), pages 231-250, June.
    30. Carol Newman & Alan Matthews, 2007. "Evaluating the Productivity Performance of Agricultural Enterprises in Ireland using a Multiple Output Distance Function Approach," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(1), pages 128-151, February.
    31. Tesfaye, Wondimagegn & Tirivayi, Nyasha, 2020. "Crop diversity, household welfare and consumption smoothing under risk: Evidence from rural Uganda," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    32. Ligia Alba Melo-Becerra & Antonio José Orozco-Gallo, 2017. "Technical efficiency for Colombian small crop and livestock farmers: A stochastic metafrontier approach for different production systems," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 1-16, February.
    33. Coelli, Tim & Fleming, Euan, 2004. "Diversification economies and specialisation efficiencies in a mixed food and coffee smallholder farming system in Papua New Guinea," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 31(2-3), pages 229-239, December.
    34. Aigner, Dennis & Lovell, C. A. Knox & Schmidt, Peter, 1977. "Formulation and estimation of stochastic frontier production function models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 21-37, July.
    35. Greene, William, 2005. "Reconsidering heterogeneity in panel data estimators of the stochastic frontier model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 126(2), pages 269-303, June.
    36. W. Gibson, 1959. "Three multivariate models: Factor analysis, latent structure analysis, and latent profile analysis," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 24(3), pages 229-252, September.
    37. Parmeter, Christopher F. & Kumbhakar, Subal C., 2014. "Efficiency Analysis: A Primer on Recent Advances," Foundations and Trends(R) in Econometrics, now publishers, vol. 7(3-4), pages 191-385, December.
    38. Jema Haji, 2007. "Production Efficiency of Smallholders' Vegetable-dominated Mixed Farming System in Eastern Ethiopia: A Non-Parametric Approach," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 16(1), pages 1-27, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hayatullah Ahmadzai, 2022. "Hope for Change: Is Diversifying Production Portfolios an Ideal Strategy to Boost Farming Efficiency in Afghanistan?," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 22(1), pages 7-31, January.
    2. Djuraeva, Mukhayyo & Bobojonov, Ihtiyor & Kuhn, Lena & Glauben, Thomas, 2023. "The impact of agricultural extension type and form on technical efficiency under transition: An empirical assessment of wheat production in Uzbekistan," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 203-221.
    3. Hayatullah Ahmadzai, 2017. "Crop Diversification and Technical Efficiency in Afghanistan: Stochastic Frontier Analysis," Discussion Papers 2017-04, University of Nottingham, CREDIT.
    4. Singbo, Alphonse G. & Emvalomatis, Grigorios & Alfons, Oude Lansink, 2013. "Assessing the impact of crop specialization on farms’ performance in vegetables farming in Benin: a non-neutral stochastic frontier approach," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 149172, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    5. Lien, Gudbrand & Kumbhakar, Subal C. & Alem, Habtamu, 2018. "Endogeneity, heterogeneity, and determinants of inefficiency in Norwegian crop-producing farms," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C), pages 53-61.
    6. Steele C. West & Amin W. Mugera & Ross S. Kingwell, 2025. "What drives the overall technical efficiency of farm businesses in the Wheatbelt of Western Australia? Analysis of persistent and transient efficiencies in the presence of firm effects," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 69(1), pages 137-156, January.
    7. Ali M. Oumer & Amin Mugera & Michael Burton & Atakelty Hailu, 2022. "Technical efficiency and firm heterogeneity in stochastic frontier models: application to smallholder maize farms in Ethiopia," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 57(2), pages 213-241, April.
    8. Christopher F. Parmeter & Subal C. Kumbhakar, 2025. "The generalized panel data stochastic frontier model: A review and nonparametric estimation," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 64(3), pages 321-339, December.
    9. Boris Bravo-Ureta & Daniel Solís & Víctor Moreira López & José Maripani & Abdourahmane Thiam & Teodoro Rivas, 2007. "Technical efficiency in farming: a meta-regression analysis," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 57-72, February.
    10. Glass, Anthony J. & Kenjegalieva, Karligash & Sickles, Robin C. & Weyman-Jones, Thomas, 2018. "The Spatial Efficiency Multiplier and Common Correlated Effects in a Spatial Autoregressive Stochastic Frontier Model," Working Papers 18-003, Rice University, Department of Economics.
    11. Antonio Alvarez & Carlos Arias, 2014. "A selection of relevant issues in applied stochastic frontier analysis," Economics and Business Letters, Oviedo University Press, vol. 3(1), pages 3-11.
    12. Orea, Luis, 2019. "The Econometric Measurement of Firms’ Efficiency," Efficiency Series Papers 2019/02, University of Oviedo, Department of Economics, Oviedo Efficiency Group (OEG).
    13. Gralka, Sabine, 2018. "Stochastic frontier analysis in higher education: A systematic review," CEPIE Working Papers 05/18, Technische Universität Dresden, Center of Public and International Economics (CEPIE).
    14. Paul, Satya & Shankar, Sriram, 2018. "Modelling Efficiency Effects in a True Fixed Effects Stochastic Frontier," MPRA Paper 87437, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Martini, Gianmaria & Scotti, Davide & Viola, Domenico & Vittadini, Giorgio, 2020. "Persistent and temporary inefficiency in airport cost function: An application to Italy," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 999-1019.
    16. Satya Paul & Sriram Shankar, 2020. "Estimating efficiency effects in a panel data stochastic frontier model," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 53(2), pages 163-180, April.
    17. Ali M. Oumer & Michael Burton & Atakelty Hailu & Amin Mugera, 2020. "Sustainable agricultural intensification practices and cost efficiency in smallholder maize farms: Evidence from Ethiopia," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 51(6), pages 841-856, November.
    18. Mamonov Mikhail E. & Parmeter Christopher F. & Prokhorov Artem B., 2022. "Dependence modeling in stochastic frontier analysis," Dependence Modeling, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 123-144, January.
    19. Marzec, Jerzy & Pisulewski, Andrzej, . "The Measurement of Time Varying Technical Efficiency and Productivity Change in Polish Crop Farms," German Journal of Agricultural Economics, Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin, Department for Agricultural Economics, vol. 68(01).
    20. Mai, Nhat Chi, 2015. "Efficiency of the banking system in Vietnam under financial liberalization," OSF Preprints qsf6d, Center for Open Science.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C38 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Classification Methdos; Cluster Analysis; Principal Components; Factor Analysis
    • Q12 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets
    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:337412. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.