The relative efficiency of king's, ecclesiastical, and lay estates in Domesday Essex, 1086

In the Domesday survey of 1086, information on the inputs and output of most production units in the English economy was carefully collected by questionnaire survey and verified in court. In this paper, Essex estate data are used to assess whether similar production functions describe production for the three major classes of production unit in the economy - king's, ecclesiastical, and lay estates. A data envelopment analysis is undertaken to determine whether production on one class of estate was more efficient than on the others. The evidence suggests that production processes and management performance were similar on the three classes of estate.