Labor allocation in a household and its impact on production efficiency: A comparison of panel modeling approaches

Hild Marte Bjørnsen, Ashok K. Mishra

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

The objective of this study is to investigate the simultaneity between farm couples decisions on labor allocation and production efficiency. Using an unbalanced panel data set of Norwegian farm households (1989-2008), we estimate off-farm labor supply of married farm couples and farm efficiency in a three-equation system of jointly determined endogenous variables. We address the issue of latent heterogeneity between households. We solve the problem by two-stage OLS and GLS estimation where state dependence is accounted for in the reduced form equations. We compare the results against simpler model specifications where we suppress censoring of off-farm labor hours and endogeneity of regressors, respectively. In the reduced form specification, a considerably large number of parameters are statistically significant. Davidson-McKinnon test of exogeneity confirms that both operator and spouses off-farm labor supply should be treated as endogenous in estimating farming efficiency. The parameter estimates seem robust across model specifications. Offfarm labor supply of farm operators and spouses is jointly determined. Off-farm work by farm operator and spouses positively affects farming efficiency. Farming efficiency increases with operators age, farm size, agricultural subsidises, and share of current investment to total farm capital stock.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationEssays in Honor of Jerry Hausman
EditorsBadi Baltagi, Carter Hill, Whitney Newey, Halbert White
Pages269-303
Number of pages35
DOIs
StatePublished - 2012
Externally publishedYes

Publication series

NameAdvances in Econometrics
Volume29
ISSN (Print)0731-9053

Keywords

  • Censoring
  • Dynamic panel
  • Endogeneity
  • Farming efficiency
  • Labor allocation
  • Unobserved heterogeneity

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Economics and Econometrics

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