Measuring technical efficiency and total factor productivity in agriculture: The case of the South Marmara region of Turkey

Abstract The measurement of technical efficiency and productivity growth in the agricultural sector of developing and developed countries has received renewed attention in recent decades. The use of frontier approaches such as the data envelopment analysis (DEA) and stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) have become more popular in efficiency and productivity measurement. The main purpose of this study is to measure agricultural technical efficiency and total factor productivity using DEA and the DEA‐based Malmquist total factor productivity (TFP) index in the South Marmara region of Turkey in the period 1993–2002. An output‐oriented DEA model is used for estimating technical efficiency and the Malmquist TFP index of agricultural sector with aggregate panel data in the South Marmara region of Turkey. Calculated average technical efficiency score and Malmquist TFP index for region in period 1993–2002 are 88.3 and 3.1%, respectively.