Paper Title
Investigating Efficiency and Total Factor Productivity of Rice Production in Thailand: Provincial and Spatial Analysis

Abstract
This paper investigates production efficiency and total factor productivity growth (TFP) of rice production in Thailand. This study employs two-stage analysis. In the first stage we adopt Malmquist productivity index using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach to measure farm efficiency and TFP change. This stage employs panel data for two crops of rice production, i.e., main rice and second rice seasons, at the provincial level between year 1997 to 2018. The second stage applies spatial panel model to investigate some aspects that determine TFP growth of rice, resulted from the first stage of analysis, as well as the spatial influence among the provinces. Results obtained from the first stage of the analysis indicate that, on average, farm efficiency is 0.7788 for main rice and 0.8003 for second rice. In both seasons, the most efficient region is the north followed by the central, south, and northeast. The average annual TFP change of main rice is 0.19% and -0.18% for second rice. In addition, results obtained from the second stage of analysis confirm spatial effects influencing TFP growth among provinces. Lastly, an increase in the surface temperature has a detrimental effect on the TFP growth of rice production in Thailand. Keywords - Rice production, Production efficiency, TFP growth, Climate change, DEA, Malmquist index, Spatial panel model.