Relative cost of ginning cotton using saw, conventional roller, and high‐speed roller gins in the United States

The primary objective of this study was to investigate whether the cost of processing cotton using high‐speed roller gins is comparable to saw gins. The results from a “true” random effect model estimated using proprietary data voluntarily shared by cotton gins operating in Arizona and California showed that the average cost inefficiency for the sample gins analyzed in this study was 13.5%. Moreover, the cost of ginning using conventional roller gins and high‐speed roller gins was 24.42% and 14.18% higher than saw gins, respectively, and roller ginning costs were 10% lower for high‐speed roller gins than conventional roller gins. [EconLit Citations: D24; O14; Q16].