Un modello di frontiera stocastica per la valutazione dell'efficienza tecnica. Una applicazione agli allevamenti bovini da carne del Veneto

A stochastic production frontier has been estimated to measure the technical efficiency of an unbalanced panel of beef cattle farms extracted from the Farm Accountancy Data Network databank (FADN) of Veneto region. The model explains the value of technical inefficiency as a linear function of the farm-specific variables (Battese and Coelli, 1995) and the input interaction variables discussing the hypothesis of non-neutral effect of input level. The inefficiency term is assumed to be distributed as a truncated normal with a heteroscedastic variance explained as a function of the farm-specific variables (Reifschneider and Stevenson, 1991). The average value of the farm technical efficiency is 78.6% varying from a minimum of 30.6% to a maximum of 97.6%. The technical efficiency is positive related with the herd extension expressed as number of Livestock Unit (LSU), the value of beef production per LSU, the rate of purchased concentrate feed, and the percentage of concentrate feed used compare the overall feed expenditure. The technical efficiency is negative correlated with the intensification on the use of buildings capital and labour per LSU.