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Abstract
Several studies have compared technical efficiency estimates derived from parametric
and non parametric approaches, whereas a very small number of studies have aimed
to compare scale efficiency estimations. This paper aims to estimate technical and scale
efficiency in the Italian citrus farming. Estimation was carried out using both Data Envelopment
Analysis (DEA) and Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA). Empirical findings
suggest that the greater portion of overall inefficiency in the sample might depend on
producing below the production frontier than on operating under an inefficient scale.
Furthermore, we found that the estimated technical efficiency from the SFA model is
substantially at the same level of this estimated from DEA model, whereas the scale
efficiency arisen from SFA is larger than this obtained from DEA analysis.