View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Research Papers in Economics Analysis of Production Efficiency of Mexican Coffee-Producing Districts AAEA Annual Meetings, Selected Paper #134280 Providence, RI July 2005 Gabriela Cardenas, Dmitry Vedenov and Jack Houston Corresponding author: Dmitry Vedenov 315C Conner Hall Dept. of Ag. and Applied Economics University of Georgia Athens, GA 30602 Voice: (706) 542-0757 Fax: (706) 542-0739 E-mail:
[email protected] Cardenas is a former M.S. student (graduated 2004), Vedenov is an assistant professor, and Houston is a professor at the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, University of Georgia. © Copyright 2005 by Cardenas, Vedenov, and Houston. All rights reserved. Readers may make verbatim copies of this document for non-commercial purposes by any means, provided that this copyright notice appears on all such copies. Keywords: distance function, production systems, stochastic frontier, technical efficiency, coffee production, Mexico. Analysis of Production Efficiency of Mexican Coffee-Producing Districts Introduction The theory of economic growth recognizes the fundamental role of increases in agricul- tural outputs in achieving rural advancement (Ohkawa and Rosovsky, 1960; Johnston and Mellor, 1961; Johnston and Nielsen, 1966; Johnson, 2000). However, agricultural production in various regions of the world is often affected by price fluctuations at the global level. In particu- lar, if market changes were to depress prices of the main cash crop, the households that lack easy access to financial and factor markets might respond to these conditions by shifting production towards food crops as a self-insurance mechanism (DeJanvry, Fafchamps and Saudolet, 1991).