An evaluation of technical efficiency of small farm households Chuong My district, Ha Tay province, Vietnam

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on August 22, 2012).The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file.Thesis advisor: William H. Meyers.Includes bibliographical references.M.S. University of Missouri--Columbia 2011."May 2011"[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] The research focused on technical efficiency in small farm households in Chuong My District- Ha Tay Province in Vietnam. The goal was to find the technical efficiency, allocative efficiency, scale efficiency and scope efficiencies among farms, as well as to investigate how farm characteristics might affect farm efficiencies. Vietnam was selected as the region of study because there is not much study on technical efficiency in this area, especially there is none study about how added enterprises or level of diversification impacts farm efficiencies. The dataset is obtained from two surveys: one was conducted in 2010, and the other was the 2006 Vietnam household livelihood survey. The first survey has 75 respondents, and the second has 81 respondents. The data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach is used to measure technical efficiency, and Tobit regression is used to see how the level of diversification and other farm characteristics affect the farm's efficiency. The results show that 2010 farms have higher technical efficiency than 2006 farms. Farmers who get higher profit also have higher technical efficiency and other efficiencies. According to regression results, among farm characteristics, age, off-farm income, education, loan, land and added enterprises have the most effect on farm's efficiencies