An application of data envelopment analysis with the double bootstrapping technique to analyze cost and technical efficiency in aquaculture: Do credit constraints matter?

For a long-term growth in shrimp farming, a significant increase in shrimp output can only be fully realized by improving both technical and cost efficiency. This study employs data envelopment analysis with the double bootstrapping technique to analyze cost and technical efficiency for aquaculture. This procedure allows statistical inferences about cost and technical efficiency to be made. The case of intensive white-leg shrimp farming in Ninh Thuan, Vietnam is used for analysis. The result shows that the bias-corrected cost and technical efficiency were 0.533 and 0.723, respectively. From a policy perspective, it means that there is considerable room for improvement in cost and technical efficiency in the case of intensive white-leg shrimp farming. Such gains are certainly greater than for those using conventional data envelopment analysis, which has been widely adopted in the aquaculture literature. Regression analysis reveals that credit constraints for operational cost have a statistically negative influence on both cost and technical efficiency in this type of aquaculture.