Agricultural productivity in the WAEMU countries: decomposition in technical efficiency and in technological change

Abstract: This article analyzes the growth of the total productivity of factors of the agri- cultural sector in the WAEMU countries. DEA method was used to measure the indices of Malmquist (1953) of the total factor productivity with panel data for the period 1990–2014. The results show, on one hand, a greater contribution of technological change to agricultural productivity and, on the other hand, a stronger influence of the efficiency scale compared to the technical efficiency.

Keywords : agricultural productivity, data envelopment analysis, efficiency, WAEMU.

JEL Classification : Q16, R15.