STOCHASTIC FRONTIER MODELLING OF ORGANIC SECTOR EFFICIENCY ACROSS EUROPEAN NATIONAL ECONOMIES
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35774/jee2026.03.494Keywords:
domestic market efficiency, European countries, organic exports, organic sector, stochastic frontier analysis, SFA, technical efficiency.Abstract
The purpose of this study is to assess the efficiency of national organic sectors across European countries by distinguishing among export, retail, and consumer market performance. The methods involve separate panel stochastic frontier models with Cobb–Douglas function, an integrated domestic market efficiency index combining retail and consumer dimensions, and a quadrant-based classification of national development patterns. The main results show that processing infrastructure is the principal factor supporting domestic organic market efficiency, whereas a strong domestic market position does not necessarily coincide with high export efficiency. The organic sectors of European countries generally exhibit decreasing or nearconstant returns to scale, suggesting that expansion of the resource base alone does not ensure proportional improvements in market outcomes. The scientific novelty of the study lies in developing a multidimensional country-level SFA framework that separately evaluates the export, retail, and consumer-market efficiency of national organic sectors. The study further introduces an integrated domestic market efficiency index and combines it with export efficiency to construct a quadrant-based typology of national organic sector development patterns. The authors’ contribution is to extend efficiency analysis beyond the conventional farm-level perspective by applying three SFA models and combining their results to identify distinct patterns of organic sector development across European countries.
JEL: C23, C51, Q13.
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Received: July 17, 2026.
Reviewed: September 2, 2026.
Accepted: September 14, 2026.
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