Publications
118 results found
S Rahman, T Coelli, C Thirtle, 2003, A Stochastic Frontier Approach to Total Factor Productivity Measurement in Bangladesh Crop Agriculture, 1961-92, Journal of International Development, Vol: 15, Pages: 321-333
Srinivasan CS, Thirtle C, 2003, Potential economic impacts of terminator technologies: policy implications for developing countries, ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS, Vol: 8, Pages: 187-205, ISSN: 1355-770X
- Author Web Link
- Cite
- Citations: 10
D Schimmelpfennig, C Thirtle, 2003, A Simple Test for Dynamic Causality in Panel Data, Empirical Economics Letters, Vol: 2, Pages: 209-215
Colin Thirtle, L Lin, J Piesse, 2003, The impact of research led agricultural productivity growth on poverty reduction in Africa, Asia and Latin America, World Development, Vol: 31, Pages: 1959-1975, ISSN: 0305-750X
Beyers L, Thirtle CG, 2003, CAN GM-TECHNOLOGIES HELP AFRICAN SMALLHOLDERS? THE IMPACT OF BT COTTON IN THE MAKHATHINI FLATS OF KWAZULU-NATAL
Analysis of a survey of the 1998-99 and 1999-2000 seasons for the same 100 smallholders in the Makhathini Flats region of KwaZulu-Natal shows that Bt cotton has performed better than other varieties. Having two years of data for the same farmers allows innate efficiency differences, due to factors such as farm size, to be separated from the effects of the new technology, which is not normally possible. Farmers who adopted Bt cotton in 1999-2000 benefited according to all the measures used. Higher yields and lower chemical costs outweighed higher seed costs, giving higher gross margins. These measures showed negative benefits in 1998-99, which conflicts with continued adoption, but stochastic efficiency frontier estimation, which takes account of the labor saved, showed that adopters averaged 88% efficiency, as compared with 66% for the non-adopters. In 1999/2000, when late rains lowered yields, the gap widened to 74% for adopters and 48% for non-adopters.
Bailey A, Balcombe K, Morrison J, et al., 2003, A comparison of proxy variable and stochastic latent variable approaches to the measurement of bias in technological change in South African agriculture, Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Vol: 12, Pages: 315-324, ISSN: 1043-8599
Coelli T, Rahman S, Thirtle C, 2002, Technical, allocative, cost and scale efficiencies in Bangladesh rice cultivation: A non-parametric approach, JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Vol: 53, Pages: 607-626, ISSN: 0021-857X
- Author Web Link
- Cite
- Citations: 193
Thirtle CG, Schimmelpfennig DE, Townsend RF, 2002, Induced innovation in United States agriculture,1880-1990: Time series tests and an error correction model, AMERICAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Vol: 84, Pages: 598-614, ISSN: 0002-9092
- Author Web Link
- Cite
- Citations: 34
Thirtle C, 2002, Agricultural science policy: Changing global agendas, AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL AND RESOURCE ECONOMICS, Vol: 46, Pages: 288-291, ISSN: 1364-985X
Thirtle C, 2002, Agricultural science policy: Changing global agendas, JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Vol: 53, Pages: 120-122, ISSN: 0021-857X
Piesse J, Hadley D, Shankar B, et al., 2002, The efficiency of input use during the early transition in Hungary, ECONOMICS OF PLANNING, Vol: 35, Pages: 183-204, ISSN: 0013-0451
- Author Web Link
- Cite
- Citations: 1
Z Irz, S Wiggins, C Thirtle, 2001, Agricultural Productivity Growth and Poverty Alleviation, Development Policy Review, Vol: 19, Pages: 449-466
Townsend R, Thirtle C, 2001, Is livestock research unproductive? Separating health maintenance from improvement research, Agricultural Economics, Vol: 25, Pages: 177-189, ISSN: 0169-5150
Suhariyanto K, Thirtle C, 2001, Asian agricultural productivity and convergence, JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Vol: 52, Pages: 96-110, ISSN: 0021-857X
- Author Web Link
- Cite
- Citations: 41
Peter Lawrence, Colin Thirtle, 2001, Africa and Asia in Comparative Economic Perspective, Bsingstoke, Publisher: Palgrave Publishers, ISBN: 9780333790298
Thirtle CG, Srinivasan CS, Heisey PW, 2001, PUBLIC SECTOR PLANT BREEDING IN A PRIVATIZING WORLD
Intellectual property protection, globalization, and pressure on public budgets in many industrialized countries have shifted the balance of plant breeding activity from the public to the private sector. Several economic factors influence the relative shares of public versus private sector plant breeding activity, with varying results over time, over country, and over crop. The private sector, for example, dominates corn breeding throughout the industrialized world, but public and private activities in wheat breeding differ widely in Western Europe, different regions of the United States, Canada, and Australia. Public sector involvement in plant breeding may have benefits to society that the private sector's activities may not, fostering greater sharing of information and more work on traits of plant varieties (such as environmental suitability and nutritional characteristics) that may be under-researched by private breeding programs.
Hadley D, Shankar B, Thirtle CG, et al., 2001, FINANCIAL EXPOSURE, TECHNICAL CHANGE AND FARM EFFICIENCY: EVIDENCE FROM THE ENGLAND AND WALES DAIRY SECTOR
This paper fits a translog stochastic production frontier with inefficiency effects to a panel of 693 UK dairy farms for the period from 1982 to 1997. The Cobb Douglas is rejected as inadequate relative to the less restrictive translog functional form and the frontier model is statistically superior to the mean response function, despite the fact that on average the farms were 87% efficient. Technological progress, at 1.7% per annum, is the dominant force, but efficiency declined at 0.8% per year, which reduced productivity growth to 0.9% per annum. The inefficiencies are explained in the second stage of the model, where the greatest cause is financial exposure, captured here by the ratio of debts to assets. Older farmers, those in less favoured areas and owner-occupiers were also less efficient, but large farms were more efficient, which suggests increasing returns to scale.
Balcombe K, Bailey A, Morrison J, et al., 2000, Stochastic biases in technical change in South AFRICAN agriculture, Agrekon, Vol: 39, Pages: 495-503, ISSN: 0303-1853
This paper examines biased technical change in South African agriculture using a system of share equations with unobserved components. Developing on the work of Lambert and Shonkwiler (1995), this paper generalises previous work by introducing independent unobserved components into each model using a regression-based approach. We find evidence of stochastic technical change, which is itself biased between the four factors of production: machinery, land, labour and fertiliser, and which closely reflects distinct phases of South African agricultural policy and development.
Piesse J, Thirtle C, 2000, A stochastic frontier approach to firm level efficiency, technological change, and productivity during the early transition in Hungary, JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE ECONOMICS, Vol: 28, Pages: 473-501, ISSN: 0147-5967
- Author Web Link
- Cite
- Citations: 35
Schimmelpfennig D, Thirtle C, van Zyl J, et al., 2000, Short and long-run returns to agricultural R&D in South Africa, or will the real rate of return please stand up?, AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Vol: 23, Pages: 1-15, ISSN: 0169-5150
- Author Web Link
- Cite
- Citations: 17
Srinivasan CS, Thirtle C, 2000, Understanding the emergence of terminator technologies, Journal of International Development, Vol: 12, Pages: 1147-1158
The emergence of terminator technology has generally been viewed with a great deal of apprehension on account of its potential to bring far-reaching changes in the seed industry and in long-standing agricultural practices. This paper argues that terminator technology must be seen as an induced response to the inadequacies and weaknesses of existing intellectual property rights institutions. The technology could have a significant impact on the appropriability of returns from investment in plant breeding and consequently on the development of new plant varieties. The potential of this technology for accelerating innovations in plant breeding needs to be carefully harnessed by public policy. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Colin Thirtle, Johan van Zyl, Nick Vink, 2000, South African Agriculture at the Crossroads: An Empirical Analysis of Efficiency, Technology and Productivity, Basingstoke, Publisher: Macmillan, ISBN: 9780333790281
Srinivasan CS, Thirtle C, 2000, Genetically modified organisms and smallholders in the developing world, Journal of International Development, Vol: 12, Pages: 1131-1132
No abstract
Schimmelpfennig D, Thirtle C, 1999, The internationalization of agricultural technology: Patents, R&D spillovers, and their effects on productivity in the European Union and United States, 72nd Annual Conference of the Western-Economic-Association-International, Publisher: WILEY, Pages: 457-468, ISSN: 1074-3529
- Author Web Link
- Cite
- Citations: 42
Thirtle C, 1999, Productivity and the returns to levy-funded R&D for sugar production in the eastern counties of England, JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Vol: 50, Pages: 450-467, ISSN: 0021-857X
- Author Web Link
- Cite
- Citations: 7
Thirtle C, Bottomley P, Palladino P, et al., 1998, The rise and fall of public sector plant breeding in the United Kingdom: a causal chain model of basic and applied research and diffusion, AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Vol: 19, Pages: 127-143, ISSN: 0169-5150
- Author Web Link
- Cite
- Citations: 14
Thirtle C, Townsend R, van Zyl J, 1998, Testing the induced innovation hypothesis: An error correction model of south African agriculture, AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Vol: 19, Pages: 145-157, ISSN: 0169-5150
- Author Web Link
- Cite
- Citations: 6
Thirtle C, 1998, The hesitant recovery of African agriculture, Journal of International Development, Vol: 10, Pages: 71-73
Townsend RF, Thirtle C, 1998, The effects of macroeconomic policy on South African agriculture: implications for exports, prices and farm incomes, Journal of International Development, Vol: 10, Pages: 117-128
Cointegration techniques were used to identify valid long-run relationships between macroeconomic variables and agriculture. Then, identifying restrictions were imposed on a VAR system and three long-run equilibrium relationships were found, with exports, the real price of outputs and net farm income as the dependent variables. Some of the elasticities had perverse signs that could be explained by the activities of the Marketing Boards and other distortionary policies. Tests shows that the macroeconomic variables were causally prior to the agricultural variables and that the system was becoming more responsive later in the period, as some of the distortion was removed. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Lusigi A, Piesse J, Thirtle C, 1998, Convergence of per capita incomes and agricultural productivity in Africa, Journal of International Development, Vol: 10, Pages: 105-115
This study is an investigation of convergence in per capita incomes and total factor productivity (TFP) for agriculture in the African continent. The concept of convergence, which is a basic prediction of the neoclassical growth model, has been shown to have considerable explanatory power. Here, the hypotheses of absolute and conditional convergence are tested for incomes and agricultural TFP using a panel of data for 32 African countries. Two methods of testing for convergence are applied. Both show that for this sample, conditional &bgr; convergence holds for the two growth measures and that education and investment appear to be the most important conditioning variables. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
This data is extracted from the Web of Science and reproduced under a licence from Thomson Reuters. You may not copy or re-distribute this data in whole or in part without the written consent of the Science business of Thomson Reuters.