Drivers of Productivity Change in the Italian Tomato Food Value Chain

Lukáš Čechura, Zdeňka Žáková Kroupová and Antonella Samoggia
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Lukáš Čechura: Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Management of the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, 16500 Prague, Czech Republic
Zdeňka Žáková Kroupová: Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Management of the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, 16500 Prague, Czech Republic
Antonella Samoggia: Department of Agriculture and Food Science University of Bologna, Alma Mater Studiorum—Universita di Bologna (UNIBO), Viale Fanin 50, 40125 Bologna, Italy

Agriculture, 2021, vol. 11, issue 10, 1-17

Abstract: This study evaluated productivity dynamics and identified sources of productivity growth in Italian tomato production and processing. We used a stochastic frontier input distance function with four error components—heterogeneity, statistical noise, persistent and transient inefficiency—and a four-step estimation procedure with a system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator in the first step to address the endogeneity problem. The results reveal significant differences in the productivity and efficiency of tomato production and processing. Moreover, there are considerable differences among the different sizes of tomato producers, with the main variations observed for scale efficiency. While tomato processors operate at an optimal production size, tomato producers are characterized by considerable economies of scale, especially small producers. These results thus suggest that there is significant opportunity for technical efficiency improvements at both stages of the value chain. Finally, due to improvements made to scale efficiency, extensive productivity growth was observed for the group of small tomato producers.

Keywords: total factor productivity; technical efficiency; dynamics; tomato; Italy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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