Is the olive oil an efficient sector? A meta frontier analysis considering the ownership structure

The world's olive oil production is concentrated in the Mediterranean countries and a high percentage of olive oil is produced in Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Tunisia and Syria, which together control 85 percent of the world output. This paper focuses on the impact of the ownership structure on the efficiency and sensitivities of the producers towards the quality and the environment of the olive oil sector. The efficiency of the olive oil sector was estimated by Data Envelopment Analysis. The Meta Frontier methodology was carried out in order to consider the ownership structures: cooperatives and private firms. The quality and the environmental compliance of firms were found to be of medium level. The firms analyzed showed a medium tohigh technical efficiency level. Results of bootstrapped truncated regression indicates that ownership structure (private firms), experienced production manager and extensive specialized training within the industry have together a positive effect. However the number of partners, the number of permanent unskilled labour and environmental indice cause negative effects. In this paper, it is concluded that olive oil firms should solve their environmental and quality problems and reduce their fixed capital.