Shadow prices of social capital in rural India, a nonparametric approach

Teresa Serra, Elena Poli

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This article studies the role of social capital on cotton production efficiency and productivity for a sample of small farms in Maharashtra, India using data envelopment analysis. Input shadow prices are computed as an indicator of the importance of social capital relative to other inputs. Results suggest social capital to be the input with the highest contribution to production efficiency after land. The Luenberger indicator is used to assess the productivity improvement associated to an investment in social capital, which is found to be on the order of 12%. Undertaking collective production activities is found to play an important role in improving productivity. This is especially relevant to agricultural households facing important economic and institutional restrictions that make it difficult to increase conventional (expensive) inputs.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)892-903
Number of pages12
JournalEuropean Journal of Operational Research
Volume240
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 2015
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Data envelopment analysis
  • Directional derivatives
  • Directional distance function
  • Efficiency
  • Productivity

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Information Systems and Management
  • Computer Science(all)
  • Modeling and Simulation
  • Management Science and Operations Research

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