Agricultural Productivity: Measurement and Sources of Growth (Studies in Productivity and Efficiency, 2)

**Agricultural Productivity: Measurement and Sources of Growth** addresses measurement issues and techniques in agricultural productivity analysis, applying those techniques to recently published data sets for American agriculture. The data sets are used to estimate and explain state level productivity and efficiency differences, and to test different approaches to productivity measurement. The rise in agricultural productivity is the single most important source of economic growth in the U.S. farm sector, and the rate of productivity growth is estimated to be higher in agriculture than in the non-farm sector. It is important to understand productivity sources and to measure its growth properly, including the effects of environmental externalities. Both the methods and the data can be accessed by economists at the state level to conduct analyses for their own states. In a sense, although not explicitly, the book provides a guide to using the productivity data available on the website of the U.S. Department of Agriculture/Economic Research Service. It should be of interest to a broad spectrum of professionals in academia, the government, and the private sector. Front Matter....Pages i-xiii Introduction and Overview....Pages 1-8 Front Matter....Pages 9-9 U.S. Agriculture, 1960–96: A Multilateral Comparison of Total Factor Productivity....Pages 11-35 A Disaggregated Perspective on Post-War Productivity Growth in U.S. Agriculture: Isn’t That Spatial?....Pages 37-84 Transitive Multilateral Comparisons of Agricultural Output, Input, and Productivity: A Nonparametric Approach....Pages 85-116 Productivity Versus Urban Sprawl: Spatial Variations in Land Values....Pages 117-133 Front Matter....Pages 135-135 Parametric Estimation of Technical and Allocative Efficiency in U.S. Agriculture....Pages 137-166 Public R&D and Infrastructure Policies: Effects on Cost of Midwestern Agriculture....Pages 167-183 Sources of Agricultural Productivity Growth at the State Level, 1960–1993....Pages 185-209 Front Matter....Pages 211-211 Environmental Indicators of Pesticide Leaching and Runoff from Farm Fields....Pages 213-256 The Environmental Performance of the U.S. Agricultural Sector....Pages 257-275 The Effect of Ground Water Regulation on Productivity Growth in the Farm Sector....Pages 277-291 Costs of Production and Environmental Risk: Resource-Factor Substitution in U.S. Agriculture....Pages 293-309 Conclusion: The Usefulness of Productivity Measurement....Pages 311-319 Back Matter....Pages 321-324 Specialists in economics and agriculture explain how recent theories and methods are being and can be used to measure agricultural productivity in the US, and describe and utilize new data sets recently made available at the Economic Research Service of the US Department of Agriculture. They look at multi-lateral comparisons of total factor productivity, applying parametric and non-parametric methods; use Service data to estimate differences in economic efficiency by state and the sources of agricultural productivity differences, especially the effects of infrastructure and research and extension; and explore the linkage between productivity growth and the environment, both in terms of the impact of the growth on environmental health, and the impact of environmental regulation on the growth. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR