Three decades of productivity change in French beef production: a Färe-Primont index decomposition
Résumé
The F€are-Primont index is used to evaluate total factor productivity (TFP) change andits components for a sample of French suckler cow farms in grassland areas in 1985–2014. The results reveal an increase in TFP of 6.6 per cent over the whole observationperiod, with technological progress being the major source of productivity growth.Meanwhile, efficiency decreased. Farms experienced great technological progress from1991 to 2000. From a methodological point of view, the comparison with resultsobtained with Malmquist indexes shows similar trends but different magnitudes, withthe Malmquist index overestimating the TFP and technological changes compared tothe F€are-Primont index. In addition, the use of a sequential approach that restrictstechnological change to being positive or null allows for the precise calculation oftechnology changes, disregarding the effects of external conditions that are captured inefficiency changes. Finally, the estimation of full dimensional efficient facets (FDEFs)that guarantees the positivity of all shadow prices used to assess the mix efficiencycomponent of TFP change is promising.