Evaluation of Agricultural Projects by Parametric Cost Efficiency and Productivity-gap Approaches: An Empirical Study of Flood Control and Drainage Systems in the Southwest Coastal Area of Bangladesh

抄録

Cost efficiency, often used in evaluating different projects and programs in agriculture, is sensitive to a number of factors including specifications of the stochastic frontier model that call for its verification; but this issue is usually ignored. This study, however, empirically evaluates two flood control and drainage (FCD) projects, Silt-dredging and Regulative-drainage Management (SRM) and Tidal River-basin Management (TRM), implemented in the southwest coastal area of Bangladesh, with the parametric approach to cost efficiency, and verifies this estimation by the productivity-gap approach to cost-gap, in reference to fisheries production with the projects. The cost efficiency score with the SRM slightly exceeds that with the TRM by 0.05 points while the cost-gap with the SRM falls below that with the TRM by tk. 1897.68 per acre, indicating a cost-gap ratio of 1.5. The performance indicators from both of the approaches imply that the SRM system marginally outperforms the TRM. Thus, estimation of cost efficiency is verified and hence the SRM should get priority over the TRM project.