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Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the productivity change for
agricultural cooperatives in Japan measured by nonparametric outputoriented
Malmquist indices of total factor productivity. The productivity
change is decomposed into technical change and technical efficiency change.
Linear programming techniques are used to calculate the productivity
change using a panel data set for 49 agricultural cooperatives located in the
paddy-field region of Hokkaido in Japan over the period 1982-1991. The
results suggest that the pattern of TFP changes tends to be driven more by
improvements in technical efficiency rather than technical progress.