Abstract
Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine (KRU) already collectivelyaccount for about quarter of the world wheat exports and those countries havestill huge unrealized production potential. This production potential can berealized if improvements in production efficiency achieved since an averageyields yet are far below compared to the developed countries like US andCanada. Need for efficiency improvements are often mentioned andgovernments implemented several policy reforms to advance productionefficiencies. However, empirical research on the effects of such policy reformsis scarce, particularly in the case of KRU countries. This study aims at fillingthis gap with using cross-sectional data from wheat producing farms across sixregions of Kazakhstan and Russia employing a two-step stochastic frontierproduction analysis. Analysis suggest that the factors like an access to capitalassets, farmer’s education and use of crop insurance can improve technicalefficiencies of farms. On the other hand, subsidy payments from governmentseem to have strong negative impact on farm’s technical efficiency.