Degree Of Cost Efficiency Research Articles

Costs and cost-efficiency of a mobile cash transfer to prevent child undernutrition during the lean season in Burkina Faso: a mixed methods analysis from the MAM\u2019Out randomized controlled trial

BackgroundThis study assessed the costs and cost-efficiency of a mobile cash transfer implemented in Tapoa Province, Burkina Faso in the MAM’Out randomized controlled trial from June 2013 to December 2014, using mixed methods and taking a societal perspective by including costs to implementing partners and beneficiary households.MethodsData were collected via interviews with implementing staff from the humanitarian agency and the private partner delivering the mobile money, focus group discussions with beneficiaries, and review of accounting databases. Costs were analyzed by input category and activity-based cost centers. cost-efficiency was analyzed by cost-transfer ratios (CTR) and cost per beneficiary. Qualitative analysis was conducted to identify themes related to implementing electronic cash transfers, and barriers to efficient implementation.ResultsThe CTR was 0.82 from a societal perspective, within the same range as other humanitarian transfer programs; however the intervention did not achieve the same degree of cost-efficiency as other mobile transfer programs specifically. Challenges in coordination between humanitarian and private partners resulted in long wait times for beneficiaries, particularly in the first year of implementation. Sensitivity analyses indicated a potential 6% reduction in CTR through reducing beneficiary wait time by one-half. Actors reported that coordination challenges improved during the project, therefore inefficiencies likely would be resolved, and cost-efficiency improved, as the program passed the pilot phase.ConclusionsDespite the time required to establish trusting relationships among actors, and to set up a network of cash points in remote areas, this analysis showed that mobile transfers hold promise as a cost-efficient method of delivering cash in this setting. Implementation by local government would likely reduce costs greatly compared to those found in this study context, and improve cost-efficiency especially by subsidizing expansion of mobile money network coverage and increasing cash distribution points in remote areas which are unprofitable for private partners.

Estimating Production Efficiency in Rice Cultivation of Bihar: An Economic Approach

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) has been widely used in measuring agricultural production efficiency. The present paper is to investigate the technical, allocative and cost or economic efficiencies of rice farms in Bihar. The farm level data used in the analysis was taken from cost of cultivation scheme, Government of India running in the state from 45 tehsils of Bihar. Rice is a staple food and consumed by large population of the state, nation and world level. The technical efficiency, allocative efficiencies of most of the farms were found to be 62% separately for each. Accordingly the degree of cost efficiency was estimated to be only 38.8%. Although, TE and AE being only 62%, farmers are still inefficient to achieve up to the optimal level of output. Given the available technology, farmers may reduce the paddy production cost by 61.2% to produce given level of output at least cost. Tobit analysis was carried out to assess the factors influencing efficiencies revealed that lack of education and quality seeds, and irrigation machinery were found to impact the efficiencies. Government and other policy making agencies have to formulate policies favourable to transform agriculture sector profitable which can attract the educated youth towards agriculture as profession. There is ample opportunities to minimize the cost of paddy production using a given level of technology coupled with proper and timey application of inputs, right combination of inputs with input and output prices to produce a given level of output at least cost. Besides assured supply of good quality seed, irrigation facilities, dissemination of new farming technologies, better education system and financial assistance, marketing infrastructures should be arranged timely so as to enhance the income of rural masses, and to reduce the poverty from the rural areas of the state in general and nation in particular.

Estimating Production Efficiency in Rice Cultivation of Bihar: An Economic Approach

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) has been widely used in measuring agricultural production efficiency. The present paper is to investigate the technical, allocative and cost or economic efficiencies of rice farms in Bihar. The farm level data used in the analysis was taken from cost of cultivation scheme, Government of India running in the state from 45 tehsils of Bihar. Rice is a staple food and consumed by large population of the state, nation and world level. The technical efficiency, allocative efficiencies of most of the farms were found to be 62% separately for each. Accordingly the degree of cost efficiency was estimated to be only 38.8%. Although, TE and AE being only 62%, farmers are still inefficient to achieve up to the optimal level of output. Given the available technology, farmers may reduce the paddy production cost by 61.2% to produce given level of output at least cost. Tobit analysis was carried out to assess the factors influencing efficiencies revealed that lack of education and quality seeds, and irrigation machinery were found to impact the efficiencies. Government and other policy making agencies have to formulate policies favourable to transform agriculture sector profitable which can attract the educated youth towards agriculture as profession. There is ample opportunities to minimize the cost of paddy production using a given level of technology coupled with proper and timey application of inputs, right combination of inputs with input and output prices to produce a given level of output at least cost. Besides assured supply of good quality seed, irrigation facilities, dissemination of new farming technologies, better education system and financial assistance, marketing infrastructures should be arranged timely so as to enhance the income of rural masses, and to reduce the poverty from the rural areas of the state in general and nation in particular.

Ordering Municipalities by Medical Cost Efficiency Under the Japanese National Health Insurance System Using the Stochastic Cost Frontier Model

SYNOPTIC ABSTRACTWe apply the stochastic cost frontier model (SCFM) proposed by Battese and Coelli (1995) to evaluate whether Japanese municipal national health insurances (NHI) are efficiently administrated by their insuring municipalities. A linear structure is assumed for the cost efficiency term in SCFM and the best set of explanatory variables in SCFM is selected by minimizing the Bayesian information criterion (BIC). The optimized SCFM clarifies the factors associated with inefficiency and the degree of cost efficiency and its confidence interval. The NHI subsidy system is likely to incur the soft budget problem, since financial deficits are covered ex post by subsidies from the central government. The results obtained using the optimal SCFM show that there is the soft budget problem in NHI, the greater the financial support is from the central government, the less efficiently a municipality administers NHI, and some amount of subsidies are used for inefficient medical cost.

Size and Cost Efficiency in the Production of Local Road Services

The authors analyze 925 town highway departments in New York to determine potential economies from consolidation and the degree of cost efficiency. Only 15% of departments would reduce costs by merging, resulting in an average 13% reduction in expenditures. In addition, all of the towns are cost inefficient by an average 17%. Size economies are estimated using a log quadratic stochastic frontier regression model. The estimated cost curve is a textbook U shape with a mean cost elasticity of 0.97, indicating that most towns are operating at the minimum point of the curve. The composed error model is used to estimate cost inefficiency, which is not systematically linked to size inefficiency. However, 14 very small departments are quite cost inefficient.