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A FURTHER NOTE ON THE MEASUREMENT OF EFFICIENCY AND ECONOMIES OF FARM SIZE
Author(s) -
Pasour E. C.
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
journal of agricultural economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.157
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1477-9552
pISSN - 0021-857X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1477-9552.1981.tb01552.x
Subject(s) - disequilibrium , normative , economics , meaning (existential) , microeconomics , profit (economics) , scope (computer science) , decision maker , norm (philosophy) , neoclassical economics , epistemology , computer science , management science , medicine , philosophy , programming language , ophthalmology
Efficiency has a precise meaning in the case of the optimally conditions associated with the perfectly competitive norm. However, the efficiency concept loses a precise meaning and much of its usefulness under real world conditions of uncertainty and costly information since efficiency is inescapably evaluative and cannot be defined and measured independently of the goals and knowledge of the decision maker. Similarly, the concept ‘economies of size’ is shown to lose its normative significance when specialised resources and other unique aspects of the firm are taken into account. Although the economist has no objective procedure by which to measure the efficiency of entrepreneurial activity, it is argued that in the real world of uncertainty and disequilibrium, there is always scope for entrepreneurial activity in the sense of unexploited profit opportunities.