Nonparametric efficiency and elasticity measurement of the agricultural sector in Turkey

Agricultural efficiency plays a fundamental role to increase agricultural productivity and efficient allocation of resources in the economy. In this direction, studies on the measurement of agricultural efficiency all over the world use a wide variety of methodologies with different concepts and measurement approaches. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), one of the most important techniques of the Operational Research, is frequently used in order to be able to carry out agricultural production efficiently in agricultural efficiency studies, performance evaluations of agricultural products and agricultural policies for the future. In this study, three main DEA-based techniques were analyzed with using crop production statistics which is published by Turkish Statistical Institute (TSI) with the most current data between the years 2010-2016 in Turkey's agricultural sector. The crops produced in Turkey's agricultural sector analyzed with efficiency analysis, the efficiency changes in the years under evaluation and partial elasticity measurement of created scenarios with different inputs and outputs. Partial elasticity measurement models on the DEA efficient frontier were applied for the first time in the agricultural sector. It was aimed to provide a macro perspective on Turkish agriculture sector with the results obtained.