Three Essays on Wheat Production Efficiency in Iraq: Comparison Between MENA Countries and Internal Comparison of Districts
[Thesis]
Altaie, Karrar
Pritchett, James
Colorado State University
2019
131 p.
Ph.D.
Colorado State University
2019
Wheat is an important staple of the Iraqi diet, as it is for all the nineteen Middle East North African (MENA) countries. Wheat is also an important crop for farmers in the rural areas of these countries. Yet, all the MENA countries import wheat, and the gap between growing demands and local supplies is widening. This gap is prompting general concerns of food security and driving interest in wheat productive efficiency. The focus of this dissertation is examining the technical efficiency of wheat production with a goal of informing policy decisions in Iraq. In this research, a conceptual approach of wheat productive efficiency is developed based on existing models and is translated into an empirical framework. The approach evaluates the relationships between different kinds of inputs such as human capital, financial capital, operational capital, imports and sociodemographic factors and the resulting wheat output. Inputs related to temperature, humidity and irrigation pattern also included. Technical efficiency (TE) scores and factors affecting TE are explored with two empirical methods: Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). These methods are applied in two essays: panel data exploring Middle East North African countries and a cross sectional data of wheat producing districts in Middle and South of Iraq. A third essay synthesizes the result of the two empirical explorations. In the first essay factors that affected productive efficiency are: •