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Technical catching-up and decoupled payments in a selection of French farms

This article investigates the technological catching-up process related to the type of payments (coupled or decoupled) granted to a selection of farms in the French department of Meuse between 1992 and 2012. Using a robust nonparametric efficiency frontier, we first derive a distribution of technical efficiency estimates. Second, through a series of cross-sectional data samples, we regress these estimates on other exogenous, farm-specific variables, such as the subsidies granted and the financial situation. Our results show that technical catching-up occurred for the farms studied. Furthermore, the presence of decoupled payments during the final period slowed down this process. Finally, farms’ mid-/long-term debts also had a negative impact on their technical catching-up.