Publications
118 results found
J van Zyl, C Thirtle, 1998, Productivity, Efficiency and Land Markets in South African Agriculture, 230 Soutter Street, Pretoria, 0001, RSA, Publisher: Human Science Research Council Printers, ISBN: 9781868543052
Khatri Y, Thirtle C, Townsend R, 1998, Testing The Induced Innovation Hypothesis: An Application to UK Agriculture, 1953-90, Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Vol: 6, Pages: 1-28
This paper exploits the properties of the third order approximation of the translog cosl function lo estimate the input demand elasticities and factor-saving biases of technological change for UK agriculture. Then, cointegration techniques are used to determine the time series properties of the variables, eslablish cointegration and test for causality. The tests show that the single bias, single relative price approach, applied to the cumulative biases in previous tests, is inappropriate. Maximum likelihood techniuues show that cointegrating vectors exist and that the input prices are negatively related to the biases, as required by the hypothesis. The prices are causally prior to the biases, but for crop inputs there is also reverse causality.
Thirtle C, Palladino P, Piesse J, 1997, On the organisation of agricultural research in the United Kingdom, 1945-1994: A quantitative description and appraisal of recent reforms, RESEARCH POLICY, Vol: 26, Pages: 557-576, ISSN: 0048-7333
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- Citations: 20
Farrington J, Thirtle C, Henderson S, 1997, Methodologies for monitoring and evaluating agricultural and natural resources research, Workshop on Socio-Economic Methods in Renewable Natural Resources Research, Publisher: ELSEVIER SCI LTD, Pages: 273-300, ISSN: 0308-521X
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- Citations: 7
LUSIGI ANGELA, THIRTLE COLIN, 1997, TOTAL FACTOR PRODUCTIVITY AND THE EFFECTS OF R&D IN AFRICAN AGRICULTURE, Journal of International Development, Vol: 9, Pages: 529-538
This paper calculates multilateral Malmquist indices of total factor productivity (TFP) for agriculture in 47 African countries, for the period 1961-91. The average rate of TFP growth was found to be 1.27 per cent, which is higher than expected, given the pessimistic nature of much of the literature. There is some evidence of convergence in productivity levels, as the countries with low starting levels grew more rapidly. Population pressure on the land also appears to be a major explanation of faster growth, as has been suggested by Boserup and by Hayami and Ruttan's induced innovation hypothesis. However, fitting deterministic and stochastic frontier models shows that the effect of agricultural R&D on TFP growth is also positive and significant. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
C Thirtle, J Piesse, V Smith, 1997, An Economic Approach to the Structure, Historical Development and Reform of Agricultural R&D in the United Kingdom, University of Reading, Publisher: Centre for Agricultural Strategy
Thirtle C, Piesse J, Turk J, 1996, The productivity of private and social farms: Multilateral Malmquist indices for Slovene dairying enterprises, JOURNAL OF PRODUCTIVITY ANALYSIS, Vol: 7, Pages: 447-460, ISSN: 0895-562X
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- Citations: 7
Khatri Y, Thirtle C, 1996, Supply and demand functions for UK agriculture: Biases of technical change and the returns to public R&D, JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Vol: 47, Pages: 338-354, ISSN: 0021-857X
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- Citations: 14
Piesse J, Thirtle C, vanZyl J, 1996, Effects of the 1992 drought on productivity in the South African homelands: An application of the Malmquist index, JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Vol: 47, Pages: 247-254, ISSN: 0021-857X
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- Citations: 2
Khatri Y, Thirtle C, vanZyl J, 1996, Public research and development as a source of productivity change in South African agriculture, SOUTH AFRICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, Vol: 92, Pages: 143-150, ISSN: 0038-2353
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- Citations: 10
Piesse J, Thirtle C, Turk J, 1996, Efficiency and ownership in slovene dairying: A comparison of econometric and programming techniques, JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE ECONOMICS, Vol: 22, Pages: 1-22, ISSN: 0147-5967
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- Citations: 19
Khatri Y, Thirtle C, 1996, SUPPLY AND DEMAND FUNCTIONS FOR UK AGRICULTURE: BIASES OF TECHNICAL CHANGE AND THE RETURNS TO PUBLIC R&D, Journal of Agricultural Economics, Vol: 47, Pages: 338-354
Thirtle C, 1996, Science under scarcity: Principles and practice for agricultural research evaluation and priority setting - Alston,JM, Norton,GW, Pardey,PG, EUROPEAN REVIEW OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Vol: 23, Pages: 371-373, ISSN: 0165-1587
Piesse J, Thirtle C, Zyl J, 1996, EFFECTS OF THE 1992 DROUGHT ON PRODUCTIVITY IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN HOMELANDS: AN APPLICATION OF THE MALMQUIST INDEX, Journal of Agricultural Economics, Vol: 47, Pages: 247-254
Piesse J, Bach HSV, Thirtle C, et al., 1996, The efficiency of smallholder agriculture in South Africa, Journal of International Development, Vol: 8, Pages: 125-144
This study applies data envelopment analysis (DEA) to 1990-91 maize production data for small-holders in the Northern Transvaal homelands of KaNgwane, Lebowa and Venda. There are extremely large differences in efficiency, both between farms and between regions. Within regions, the poorest farms are less than 10 per cent efficient and comparing the homelands shows Venda to be far less productive. Decomposing the efficiency estimates shows that farm size and technical efficiency each explain about half of the total differences. Land is the most serious constraint on output, fertilizer the least binding constraint and the FSP strategy of supplying modern seeds is economically efficient.
Thirtle C, Townsend R, van Zyl J, 1995, Testing the induced innovation hypothesis in South African agriculture (an error correction approach)
The authors investigate whether factor prices matter in agricultural production and in the selection of production technology. Each stage of the analysis corroborates the inducement hypothesis, which implies that factor prices do matter in agricultural production and in the selection of production technology. The empirical results also suggest that observed rates and biases of technological change are influenced by average farm size, by spending on research and extension, and by favorable tax and interest-rate policies. In South Africa, the authors contend, more attention should be focused on the technological needs of small-scale farmers. The lobbying power of the large commercial farmers, combined with policies followed under apartheid, must have influenced the allocation of research and development funds between labor- and land-saving technical change. This will have distorted the technological bias toward labor saving technical change, which is hardly appropriate for a labor-surplus economy in which small farmers in the former homelands face a chronic scarcity of land. These results show that factor prices do matter in agricultural production and the selection of production technology. And there seems to be merit to the World Bank's usual policy prescription - structural adjustment and market liberalization - for economies in which prices are controlled and distorted. They investigate the role of factor prices by applying cointegration techniques to a model of induced innovation based on the two-stage constant elasticity of substitution production function. This approach results in direct tests of the inducement hypothesis, which are applied to data for South African agriculture for the period 1947-92. They check the time series properties of the variables, establish cointegration, and construct an error correction model (ECM) that allows factor substitution to be separated from technological change. Finally, they subject the ECM formulation to tests of causalit
van Zyl J, Binswanger H, Thirtle C, 1995, The relationship between farm size and efficiency in South African agriculture
Drawing on international evidence, the authors discuss the sources of economies of scale. Using representative farm-level survey data for South Africa's six major grain producing areas and one irrigation area for the period 1975-90, they: describe the the structure of South African agriculture, detailing the distribution of farm sizes and results from previous studies of farm-size efficiency. They also analyze the evidence on scale efficiency in the former homelands and analyze the relationship between farm size and efficiency in commercial farming and discuss how policy affects that relationship. Clearly policy has a crucial impact on the relationship between farm size and efficiency. The authors find that: a) farms in the former homelands seem to be scale-inefficient, which is unsurprising, given the historical lack of access to support services and infrastructure, policies that discriminate against farmers in the homelands, and the extremely fragmented and limited land-use rights of farmers there; b) there is an inverse relationship between farm size and efficiency in the commercial farming areas for the range of farms analyzed, regardless what method is used. This inverse relationship seems to become stronger and accentuated as policy distortions - which tend to favor large farms over small ones - are removed; and c) large farms tend to use more capital intensive methods of production, while smaller farms are more labor-intensive. And managerial ability seems to be better on larger farms. There is an inverse relationship between farm size and efficiency in South African agriculture despite South Africa's history of policies favoring relatively large mechanized farms. Clearly, efficiency gains could be significant if commercial farms became smaller. To encourage that trend, policies and distortions that favor large farms over small should be removed.
THIRTLE C, 1995, MONITORING AND EVALUATING AGRICULTURAL-RESEARCH - A SOURCEBOOK - HORTON,D, BALLANTYNE,P, PETERSON,W, URIBE,B, GAPASIN,D, SHERIDAN,K, PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT, Vol: 15, Pages: 185-185, ISSN: 0271-2075
J Harrigan, R Loader, C Thirtle, 1995, La Politique des Prix Agricoles: Le Gouvernement et le Marche, Rome, Publisher: FAO
Khatri Y, Thirtle C, VanZyl J, 1995, South African agricultural competitiveness: A profit function approach to the effects of policies and technology, 22nd International Conference of Agricultural Economists - Agricultural Competitiveness: Market Forces and Policy Choice, Publisher: DARTMOUTH PUBLISHING CO LTD, Pages: 670-684
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- Citations: 4
Thirtle C, Ball VE, Bureau JC, et al., 1995, Accounting for productivity differences in European agriculture: Cointegration, multilateral TFPs and R&D spillovers, 22nd International Conference of Agricultural Economists - Agricultural Competitiveness: Market Forces and Policy Choice, Publisher: DARTMOUTH PUBLISHING CO LTD, Pages: 652-669
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- Citations: 7
JAYNE TS, KHATRI Y, THIRTLE C, et al., 1994, DETERMINANTS OF PRODUCTIVITY CHANGE USING A PROFIT FUNCTION - SMALLHOLDER AGRICULTURE IN ZIMBABWE, AMERICAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Vol: 76, Pages: 613-618, ISSN: 0002-9092
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- Citations: 14
SCHIMMELPFENNIG D, THIRTLE C, 1994, COINTEGRATION, AND CAUSALITY - EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH-AND-DEVELOPMENT AND PRODUCTIVITY, JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Vol: 45, Pages: 220-231, ISSN: 0021-857X
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- Citations: 19
THIRTLE C, ECHEVERRIA RG, 1994, PRIVATIZATION AND THE ROLES OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS IN AGRICULTURAL-RESEARCH IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA, 29th European-Association-of-Agricultural-Economists Seminar on Food and Agricultural Policies under Structural Adjustment, Publisher: BUTTERWORTH-HEINEMANN LTD, Pages: 31-44, ISSN: 0306-9192
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- Citations: 7
Schimmelpfennig D, Thirtle C, 1994, COINTEGRATION, AND CAUSALITY: EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AGRICULTURAL AND PRODUCTIVITY, Journal of Agricultural Economics, Vol: 45, Pages: 220-231
THIRTLE C, ATKINS J, BOTTOMLEY P, et al., 1993, AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY IN ZIMBABWE, 1970-90, ECONOMIC JOURNAL, Vol: 103, Pages: 474-480, ISSN: 0013-0133
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- Citations: 15
THIRTLE C, 1993, AGRICULTURAL-RESEARCH POLICY - INTERNATIONAL QUANTITATIVE PERSPECTIVES - PARDEY,PG, ROSEBOOM,J, ANDERSON,JR, EUROPEAN REVIEW OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Vol: 20, Pages: 389-390, ISSN: 0165-1587
THIRTLE C, BOTTOMLEY P, 1992, TOTAL FACTOR PRODUCTIVITY IN UK AGRICULTURE, 1967-90, JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Vol: 43, Pages: 381-400, ISSN: 0021-857X
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- Citations: 32
J Harrigan, R Loader, C Thirtle, 1992, Agricultural Price Policy: Government and the Market, Rome, Publisher: FAO
BOTTOMLEY P, THIRTLE C, 1991, THE ECONOMICS OF AGRICULTURAL-RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY, CONF ON AGRICULTURAL AND FOOD RESEARCH : WHO BENEFITS, Publisher: CENTRE AGRICULTURAL STRATEGY UNIV READING, Pages: 101-103
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