This study examines the relationship between major government support programs and farm-level technical efficiency in Thailand’s sticky rice sector. While existing studies have extensively analyzed rice efficiency, limited attention has been given to distinguishing the efficiency implications of different policy instruments or to modeling dependence between stochastic shocks and inefficiency. Methodologically, we employ a copula-based stochastic frontier efficiency effects model that jointly estimates production and inefficiency determinants while allowing for flexible dependence between noise and inefficiency components. Empirically, we use primary survey data from 429 farmers in Northern Thailand. The results indicate that participation in the debt moratorium program is positively associated with technical efficiency, whereas the widely implemented 1000-baht-per-rai subsidy is negatively associated with efficiency. The cost-reduction program exhibits no statistically significant association. The mean technical efficiency is 0.458, with a distribution concentrated at both low and high efficiency levels, indicating substantial heterogeneity across farmers.
Yamaka et al. (Thu,) studied this question.