A two-stage DEA model to evaluate agricultural efficiency in case of Serbian districts

Abstract

Since the efficient agricultural sector is one of the most important drivers of country’s economic development, the main objective of this paper was to examine relative technical efficiency of agricultural production in 25 Serbian districts using two-stage data envelopment analysis. Results of this research indicate that the efficiency score values lie between 70% and 100%, therefore it can be concluded that the agricultural sector of Serbia performs at a high level of efficiency, with the average efficiency score of 90%. The lowland region of Vojvodina is characterized with the highest efficiency scores, while districts in the southeastern part of Serbia have the lowest efficiency score values. Furthermore, the Tobit regression model was applied that one may examine the drivers of technical efficiency scores. The results show the significance of agricultural training among farm managers, land irrigation and age of farm holders in altering agricultural efficiency among Serbian districts.