Efficiency has been proven to be an important managerial tool in improving total factor productivity in agriculture. The four sources of economic inefficiency: allocative, technical, pure technical and scale inefficiency of a sample of seventy-six Nepalese rice farmers were examined using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) decomposition method. The inefficiency indices computed by the DEA were then used as the dependent variable in a Tobit (censored) regression model using decision- makers’ attributes as the explanatory variables. The results revealed relatively large inefficiencies among the farms sampled. The average economic, allocative, technical, pure technical and scale inefficiencies were 34%, 13%, 24%, 18%, and 7% respectively. There is also a... |