| This study, using the nonparametric approach initially developed by Farrell, analyzed the effects of land reform on the efficiency of Thai rice farms. The analytic framework, in particular, has been the output-based analysis using a piecewise linear frontier technology. The first step was to measure the efficiency of Thai rice farms. By dividing the sample into 9 different regions, the empirical results show that, on the average, rice farms are overall inefficient in every region. The results also indicate technical inefficiency as the main source of this overall inefficiency.;The study continued, in the second step, to analyze the effects of farm size and types of land ownership on the efficiency measures: overall, allocative, overall technical, scale, and pure technical efficiency measures. By using censored regression analysis, the results show that the area size of farm significantly affects farms efficiency in three regions. Specifically, small farms are more efficient than large farms. Whereas, type of land ownership has a significant effect on farms' efficiency in four regions. The results indicate that farms with owned-land and farms with rented-land are more efficient than farms with other types of land ownership: rent free, public land, and others.;Finally, the study analyzed the effect of land redistribution (as well as other input reallocation) on rice farms' potential revenue and potential output. With the help of linear programming techniques, it was found that land and labor reallocation would have been an ideal policy instrument for Thailand as it would feasibly generate the highest potential revenue as well as output for rice farms with available resources. |
