Technical efficiency and productivity growth in Egypts cotton production

The production of cotton has great economic importance in Egypt. However, in the last years an important decline was observed both in cotton production and cultivated area. One of the suggested causes of this decline is the low productivity growth. In this paper we employ the stochastic frontier analysis to analyze the evolution of total factor productivity (TFP) from its determinants (including the efficiency). The empirical results indicate that technical efficiency improves substantially during the period considered, but TFP growth is small. This low growth is due primarily to the unfavorable evolution of technical progress. Policy implications are offered in light of the results. Key words: Cotton, Egypt, stochastic frontier, technical efficiency, technical progress, total productivity.