Productive efficiency of the sandfish Arctoscopus japonicus coastal gillnet fishery using stochastic frontier analysis

It is important to estimate the productive efficiencies of industries, especially the fishing industry, in order to determine policies that can improve business conditions. In this study, the productive efficiency of the sandfish coastal gillnet fishery on the east coast of Korea has been estimated using stochastic frontier analysis (SFA). A translog production function wherein the inefficiency was represented by a truncated-normal distribution was established; the output variable was the trip production quantity, the input variables were physical production factors directly related to the fishing activities of vessels, such as tonnage, horsepower, and the number of employed fishers. The average productive efficiency of the sample was 0.59 [0.40–0.79], which implied that productive inefficiency occurs in sandfish coastal gillnet vessels. Moreover, it was verified that there are no differences among the average productive efficiencies of fishing vessels of different tonnages.