Driving and Restraining Forces for Economic and Technical Efficiency in Dairy Farms What are the Effects of Technology and Management?

The overall aim of this study was to analyze what drives and restrains efficient dairy production, based on data from dairy farms in Sweden. Key back ground factors of the study was that Swedish farms are getting larger and fewer, the Mid Term Review which changes the market situation and the evidence from several international studies that dairy farms can become more efficient than they are. The literature revealed three themes which were considered as fruitful conceptual frameworks for the analysis: the overall structure of inefficiency, the farm itself and the farmer managerial capacity. The first theme was analyzed in Paper I and II, the second theme in Paper III and the third in Paper IV. The study was based on farm accounting data from Statistics Sweden, a database of gross margin budgets for different agricultural production lines and regions in Sweden (Agriwise), a dairy cow recording scheme and a mail-questionnaire. All papers were based on data envelopment efficiency scores and regression analyzes. Paper I analyzed the structure of inefficiency by considering which efficiency perspective (input o