Efficiency analysis of the Portuguese beam trawl fleet that targets the common prawn Palaemon serratus (Pennant)

This paper focuses on the beam trawl fleet that operates in the centre-north of Portugal, and aims to estimate the technical efficiency of this in 2004 and to assess the technical efficiency change, the technical change of production technology and total factor productivity change for the period ranging from 1995 to 2004. The efficiency of the beam trawl fleet in 2004 was estimated, with parametric methods. To obtain the frontier form of production possibilities, we used the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) Technique. The evolution of efficiency was based in non-parametric methods namely the Malmquist Index, which is based on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) techniques. The results indicated that the technical efficiency of the Portuguese beam trawl fleet was relatively low. It was observed that the output depends positively and significantly of the engine power and the number of days at sea. The results showed a slightly decrease in the total factors productivity. This is a symptom of some inefficiency of the artisanal fishing sector, which has a greater role in social terms than in the economic ones. Technical efficiency grew slightly between 1995 and 2004, whereas technological change decreased, indicating that the beam trawl fleet had technological losses during the studied period. The conjugated effect of these two measures lead to a small decrease of the total factors productivity.