Variations in regional productivity in Australian wool production

Abstract

We estimate total factor productivity in wool production spatially across benchmarked farms in four climatic areas in Eastern Australia. Estimates are decomposed into an environment-technology gap and technical efficiency relative to the production possibilities in each area. The environment-technology gap reflects the regional differences in the environment and variations in production technologies used in the wool enterprise. Significant gaps are found to exist between areas but they are relatively small in magnitude, emphasising the adaptability of the wool enterprise to environmental variability. Technical inefficiencies are also present in all areas but are larger among farmers who do not regularly receive consultancy advice in the benchmarking group. There is little variation in mean total factor productivity between the climatic areas.