Accounting for Heterogeneity in Performance Evaluation of Norwegian Dairy and Crop-Producing Farms

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper presents the results of research and analysis on the results of Norwegian dairy and crop farms. The research problem was the assessment of agricultural production results, taking into account the context of sustainable development. The work consists of a description of the research methodology and the analytical part. The analyzes are based on data from the Norwegian Institute for Bioeconomic Research. Based on the calculations, the authors present the results and interpretations of the analyzes and the implications for practice. The work is characterized by a significant empirical and research contribution. Therefore, it would be better for the work to develop Conclusions and policy implications more developed. This would increase the utility value of the publication by showing the practical application of the presented methods and analyses. The work meets the requirements of scientific work.

Author Response

Dear referee,

We thank the Referees for raising several important points and providing valuable comments that significantly improved the manuscript. We addressed all the referee's concerns and believe that the paper has benefited greatly from working on the referees' comments. 

The policy implication of the study amplified in the conclusion part.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors, 

Thank you for submitting such an interesting article. Before I can recommend it for publication, however, I would like to see some clarifications, minor corrections and addition. 

Major comments:

The most pressing comment I have concerns replicability of this study. You mentioned your data sources, however, if I wanted to reproduce your result I would not be able to do it. I am not sure whether the data is open and reusable, and in what way it can be accessed. Similarly, the script you have developed to produce your results should ideally be made public in some fashion as well. And if that is not possible, it should be explained why that is the case. 

The second comment I have concerns your discussions and conclusions. This is obviously an interesting study and perhaps some of its insights could be taken up by policy makers. It would be preferable to have a few sentences on the implications for existing policy (in Norway or elsewhere) and to what extent your results may be applicable in other regional contexts. This is not of the utmost priority to add, of course, but I think it would really improve the quality of your article.   

In the introduction there should be a clear sentence explaining why the frontier models (whether parametric or non-parametric) are useful for this specific analysis. You describe the methods extensively later, but there needs to be a sentence that makes it absolutely clear to unexperienced readers why you are using this approach as opposed to another. For an example look at line 112 in your methods section. 

Minor comments:

line 5 in abstract: "The previous study" => which previous study are you referring to?

line 7 in abstract: you speak of efficiency but there is no definition of efficiency means in the context of this paper. This should be added

line 56: there should be a quick explanation of what the Greene's techniques is

equation 1 and line 67: please check that variables are written in the same way in equations and text 

line 69: "is a set of parameters that must be approximated" it would be nice to have a brief example of such parameters. 

line 86 and 87 beginning with "in this model": please revise for language, the sentence could be clearer

line 89: "OLS" please provide also name in full not just acronym

lines 106-108: Please rephrase more clearly

section 2.2: Please be more clear in the description of the equation and variables. For example, it's not clear why you present in isolation the y variable instead of ln(yit).

line 139: "four inputs" can you mention these 4 inputs? 

Figures need to be better curated for accessibility/readibility. Some of them are distorted and text a bit small, and they use different styles. Additionally, precision on the axis needs to be consistent. If you have 3 digit decimals it should be kept that way for each tick.

Figure 1 and 2: the titles indicate input and outputs. So it would be preferable to make clear in the way you group your subfigures which are the inputs and which are the outputs. 

Line 165: these studies are in line with your results, can you provide also their reported results?       

 

Author Response

Dear referee,

We thank the Referees for raising several important points and providing valuable comments that significantly improved the manuscript. We addressed all the referee's concerns and believe that the paper has benefited from working on the referees' comments. A PDF file attached for all responses 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The article is interesting and the researched problem has scientific potential. However, some problems need to be solved:

1. The literature review should include more recent sources (2018-2021) and be enriched with relevant references.

2. The authors must briefly present the steps of the research (possibly in a figure).

3. The paper doesn't define hypotheses to be tested and validated/invalidated or research questions.

4. The results should be described better and more. There are many tables and graphs that are not explained in the text.

5. There is a need for a discussion section in which authors must be built in the context of dialogue with other researchers in the literature review.

6. In my opinion, a section of conclusions that includes theoretical and managerial implications, research limitations, and future research directions would be helpful.

 

The article has scientific value and can be improved after carefully reviewing the reported issues. 

Author Response

We appreciate the Referees' attention to several crucial issues and their insightful critical analysis, which helped to improve the manuscript a great deal. We addressed every issue raised by the referee, and we think that doing so has improved the paper.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper can be published in current form.