Is the olive oil an efficient sector? A meta frontier analysis considering the ownership structure

The world's olive oil production is concentrated in the Mediterranean countries and a high percentage of olive oil is produced in Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Tunisia and Syria, which together control 85 percent of the world output. This paper focuses on the impact of the ownership structure on the efficiency and sensitivities of the producers towards the quality and the environment of the olive oil sector. The efficiency of the olive oil sector was estimated by Data Envelopment Analysis. The Meta Frontier methodology was carried out in order to consider the ownership structures: cooperatives and private firms. The quality and the environmental compliance of firms were found to be of medium level. The firms analyzed showed a medium to-high technical efficiency level. Results of bootstrapped truncated regression indicates that ownership structure (private firms), experienced production manager and extensive specialized training within the industry have together a positive effect. However, the number of partners, the number of permanent unskilled labour and environmental indice cause negative effects. In this paper, it is concluded that olive oil firms should solve their environmental and quality problems and reduce their fixed capital. Key Words: cooperatives, DEA, Delphi method, olive oil, truncated regression. La production d'huile d'olive dans le monde est concentree dans les pays mediterraneans, avec une part importante en Espagne, Italie, Grece, Turquie, Tunisie et Syrie, qui contribuent dans l'ensemble a 85% du total mondial. Dans cet article, nous allons parcourir l'effet de la structure de propriete sur la performance et la sensibilite des producteurs a l'egard de la qualite et de l'environnement du secteur oleicole. La performance du secteur de l'huile d'olive est calculee a l'aide de la methode DEA (methode d'analyse d'enveloppement des donnees). L'approche de la metafrontiere est adoptee pour prendre en compte deux types de structure de propriete : les cooperatives et les entreprises privees. Les entreprises montrent un niveau moyen de conformite a la qualite et a l'environnement et un niveau moyen a haut d'efEicacite technique. Les resultats issus d'une regression tronquee et de la methodologie du bootstrap indiquent que la structure de propriete (entreprises privees), des managers experimentes et une formation specialisee complete au niveau du secteur ont globalement un effet positif. En revanche, le nombre d'associes, le nombre de travailleur