Interest has been growing in the nature of synergies in agroecosystems, prompted in part by growing concerns about the effects of environmental degradation on agricultural productivity and interrelations between agricultural outputs and ecosystem outputs. Most productivity analyses focus on technology, technical inefficiency and scale effects on productivity; yet scope economies derived from synergies can also have substantial effects that are likely to increase in the future. Scope economies take on special importance when farms diversify to halt declining biodiversity and other forms of environmental degradation. We present results of an empirical case study based on panel data on farms in England and Wales. A stochastic input distance function is estimated using Bayesian methods that enable economies of scope to be calculated between pairs of outputs based on the derivatives of the input distance function. Results confirm the presence of scope economies from diversity, providing prima facie evidence that diversity is beneficial in farming systems in England and Wales. But a number of challenges lie ahead to improve the data set and method of measuring scope economies for further substantiation of this evidence. Chief among them is the need to obtain a better measure of ecosystem outputs. The complexity of agroecosystems, with their diverse elements and numerous interactions between elements, presents a major challenge for data collection.

Data on livestock production for four provinces of Pakistan, namely Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhawa (KP) and Balochistan, for the period 1980-81 to 2008-09 were used to examine inter-provincial productivity growth rates. It was noted that the types of livestock products across the provinces are not similar, e.g. livestock is kept mainly for milk purpose in Punjab and Sindh, while in KP and Balochistan it is reared generally for meat. Total factor Productivity (TFP) estimates for livestock are lower than those for crops (Ellahi et al., 2010). Further, KP scored the highest estimate of 0.98% growth in TFP per annum showing its better efficiency than others. Major determinant causing divergence in the growth of livestock TFP is road development, impacting positively in Punjab and Sindh, and opposite of this for KP and Balochistan due to difference in the type of services required. The effect of water resource development has a negative impact on livestock TFP, except for water-scarce Balochistan. The coefficient estimates for animal treatment and vaccination for various provinces are mostly negligible, except partially for Balochistan.

Globalisation results when markets and industries become more integrated because of lower tariffs or reduced trade costs, or both. These costs have fallen over the long term because of sustained advances in transport technology and, even more dramatically, in information and communication technology (ICT). Moreover, advances in transport technologies have significantly reduced the time traded goods spend in transit (Hummels 2001). Improved transport and information technologies eventually were complemented by the modern global supply chain, an organisational innovation that leverages information and transport technology to better coordinate the activities of geographically dispersed economic agents. Direct communication costs tend to be a minor component of total transaction costs in international trade, and their share in total trading costs of any one shipment is smaller yet. Indirect communications cost, in particular the opportunity cost of imperfect coordination due to poor communication, are unknown but may be significant. Perhaps it is because of reduced loss of coordination that the diffusion of digital ICT - the 'digital grapevine' - is believed to stimulate international trade to an extent that appears to be large in proportion to the share of ICT costs in trading costs (Hummels 2007). Some of the information technology, such as satellite systems and network standards, are global commons and are available to all. Others, such as computers and wired networks, are exclusive goods. Because investment costs in computers and wired networks are significant, their diffusion across regions and countries is uneven. Moreover, the diffusion varies significantly across information technologies.

Data on crop production are assembled for four provinces - Punjab, Sindh, North-West Frontier Province and Balochistan - for the period from 1980/81 to 2005/06 to examine inter-provincial differences in productivity growth rates. Propositions are put forward and examined to explain the superior productivity performance of Punjabi crop producers over those in Sindh and North-West Frontier Province, and the unusual productivity trends in Balochistan. The major factors relate to economic infrastructure and human capital. The impact of agricultural research is difficult to discern, and further work is required to assess the lagged effects of research expenditures on TFP growth.

Australia led the way in the global wine market from the 1980s in pioneering wine as a universal lifestyle beverage, eroding the share of the market supplied by the traditional (so-called 'Old World') producers. By the turn of the century, the strategy of the wine industry had been imitated to varying degrees and at different intervals by other Southern Hemisphere New World (SHNW) wine-producing countries (Argentina, Chile, New Zealand and South Africa); the hunter had become the hunted. It had come under increasing competitive pressure from other SHNW producers during the noughties, exemplified by a decline in revealed comparative advantage in wine (Anderson and Nelgen 2011). We examine Australia's performance in wine production and exports, comparing it with the performance of other main wine-producing countries during this period. The focus is on five New World producers as the principal competitors to Australian wine exporters (SHNW producers plus USA) and the five major Old World wine-producing countries: France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Germany. The period of study is 2000 to 2009.

The efficiency of universities has attracted strong attention in recent years, not only due to the ever-increasing public funding made available to the universities, but also because universities play a significant role in shaping the future of any nation. In this study, we measure the performance of forty universities in Bangladesh for the period 2003 to 2008 using data envelopment analysis. Using the DPIN program, productivity measures are decomposed into changes in technology, output and input technical efficiency, output and input scale efficiency, and output and input mix efficiency. Total factor productivity was found to have varied widely across the sample. Our preliminary results confirm that universities achieved mean output and input technical efficiency measures for the whole period of 0.72 and 0.78, respectively. Mean output and input scale efficiency measures were 0.83 and 0.76, and mean output and input mix efficiency measures were 0.88 and 0.42, respectively. The relatively low mean input mix efficiency score probably reflects the inflexibility that universities have in adjusting their input mixes to changing student enrolments. Our results also suggest that public universities performed better on average than private universities on all efficiency scores over the study period. This study constitutes a preliminary analysis of efficiency change of Bangladeshi Universities, and we have some concerns with data quality and the availability of data on output variables that are currently being examined with the aim to provide a more suitable data set for analysis in the future.

Rice producers in the Philippines operate in different physical environments that are largely beyond their control, especially in terms of the agroclimatic conditions they face. Each rice area requires a unique set of location-specific technologies to match its location-specific needs. The rice production frontier is expected to vary, depending on the degree of yield-enhancing interventions implemented by the government and adopted by farmers. Understanding differences in specific production frontiers in different production systems should provide better assessments of yield performance across different locations and enable rice scientists to develop location-specific technologies as well as disseminate appropriate technologies to farmers in different climatic zones. A precise analysis of productive efficiencies, technology gaps and technical change among these zones may contribute to a more accurate targeting and effective design of the government's rice program. We measure technical efficiencies and technological gaps in rice production for farmers in four agroclimatic zones in the Philippines who may employ different production technologies according to environmental conditions. Climatic zone 3 is considered most favourable for rice production based on the intensity and distribution patterns of rainfall. A stochastic metafrontier function is used to compare mean technical efficiency and the environmental and technological gap ratio (ETGR) across climatic zones. We estimated four regional stochastic frontiers using the standard stochastic frontier model based on a translog functional form. A deterministic metafrontier production function was then fitted to the regional frontiers. Farm-level panel data were used from a three-round survey covering six cropping periods - the wet seasons of 1996, 2001 and 2006 and the dry seasons of 1997, 2002 and 2007. Results show surprisingly little interzonal variation in productivity. First, the production frontiers are quite stable across the different agroclimatic zones. The mean ETGR is quite high in all zones and varies in a narrow range from 0.83 to 0.87. Farmers operating in agroclimatic zone 3 are the most productive group followed by those operating in agroclimatic zone 2. Mean technical efficiencies of farmers in respect of their group frontiers are also closely grouped, ranging from 0.74 to 0.76. It appears that Philippine rice producers have been able to adapt their crop management strategies well to suit their particular agroclimatic conditions.

The policy issue: The adoption of rice technologies provides opportunities to increase rice production and farming income. Unfortunately, it is rare that all farmers are able and willing to adopt new technologies because of the deterrents to adoption imposed by various socioeconomic, institutional and environmental factors. Objectives: Assess the determinants of technology adoption in rice production in the Philippines. Evaluate the factors influencing the adoption of certified seed (CS) technology and integrated crop management practices (ICMPs) in rice production.

This study highlights the usefulness, versatility and general dexterity of an extremely robust methodology for assessing structural change in agriculture. The methodology is the multiple change point model estimator developed by Chib (1998). Despite its appeal it has, until now, remained hitherto unexploited in agricultural economics. We modify slightly the seminal prototype in Chib (1998) to embrace a rich set of rotating panel observations on agricultural cereals enterprises as assessed previously by Hadley (2006). Evidence is presented that multiple structural change occurred throughout the consecutive sample periods 1983:1986, 1989:1997, and 2000:2002.

The Federal Government's increased focus on public hospital care and its efficiency has required more in-depth analysis of public hospital performance over time. This paper focuses on New South Wales (NSW) public acute care hospitals, looking at efficiency scores and technology gaps among four categories of NSW hospitals. A balanced panel data set comprises six years of New South Wales health service comparison data for 1993/94 to 1997/98 and 2007/08. It is decomposed and analysed in four categories: Principal Referral, Major Referral, District/Regional and Community hospitals. Data envelopment analysis is used to obtain technical efficiency scores for each category to estimate individual production frontiers. A metafrontier is then constructed, encompassing each category's individual production frontiers, allowing a measure of the metatechnology ratio to be calculated. Results indicate that the average technical efficiency scores for each category of acute care hospital in NSW are 0.965, 0.921, 0.835 and 0.875 for Principal Referral, Major Referral, District/Regional and Community hospitals, respectively. The average metatechnology ratios for each of these categories are 0.964, 0.966, 0.926 and 0.910. The metatechnology ratios indicate that smaller hospitals (District/Regional and Community hospitals) find it more difficult to operate on the metafrontier due to environmental or technological factors.