From Inputs to Damages: What Agricultural Environmental Productivity Measures

Agricultural environmental productivity is commonly analyzed using alternative frontier methods and indices, although these approaches may refer to different environmental objects: inputs, production residuals, emissions, ambient conditions, damage, and changes in natural capital. This critical review examines how these objects are constructed and what technological, environmental, welfare, and sustainability conclusions they support. We compare joint production, weak disposability, material balance, and by-production and organize the selected empirical studies according to the environmental variable, its accounting or spatial boundary, and the supported inference. An interpretive framework distinguishes object, boundary, and attribution mismatch and clarifies the additional information required to move from production decisions to environmental outcomes. The reviewed applications primarily demonstrate production-side or material-use performance. Their findings cannot be directly translated into ambient environmental improvement, avoided damage, or sustainable stock management. Technological shadow values are not damage values, and improved environmental-adjusted productivity need not imply greater welfare or sustainability. Meaningful comparison and policy interpretation require alignment among the environmental object, its construction, the production technology, the system boundary, and the intended economic inference.