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Technical Efficiency (technical + efficiency)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	72%
Humanities and Social Sciences	15%
Medical Sciences	7%

Distribution within Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting

General & Introductory Economics	41%
Agricultural Economics & Resource Management	31%
General & Introductory Accounting	5%
General & Introductory Business & Management	4%
5 Other Subdomains	19%

Selected Abstracts

TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY AND PRODUCTIVITY POTENTIAL OF COCOA FARMERS IN WEST AFRICAN COUNTRIES

THE DEVELOPING ECONOMIES, Issue 3 2008
Joachim Nyemeck BINAM
D24; Q12; Q18; R58 This paper uses survey data to examine the technical efficiency and productivity potential of cocoa farmers in West and Central Africa. Separate stochastic frontier models are estimated for farmers in Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, and Côte d'Ivoire, along with a stochastic metaproduction frontier to obtain alternative estimates for the technical efficiencies of farmers in the different countries. The mean productivity potential of cocoa farmers is also estimated, by using a decomposition result applied to both the national and the metaproduction frontiers. The determinants of technical efficiency are assessed to identify the reasons for differences across countries. [source]

FINANCIAL CONSTRAINTS AND TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY: SOME EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FOR ITALIAN PRODUCERS' COOPERATIVES

ANNALS OF PUBLIC AND COOPERATIVE ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2010
Ornella Wanda Maietta
ABSTRACT,:,In this paper, we test the extent to which producers' cooperatives can experience an increase in technical efficiency following a tightening of financial constraints. This hypothesis is tested on a sample of Italian conventional and cooperative firms for the wine production and processing sector, using frontier analysis. The results support the hypothesis that increasing financial pressure can affect positively the cooperatives efficiency. [source]

Elements Which Delimitate Technical Efficiency of Fish Farms in Ghana

JOURNAL OF THE WORLD AQUACULTURE SOCIETY, Issue 4 2010
Edward E. Onumah
The study aims to examine the technical efficiency and its determinants of fish farms in Ghana. The stochastic frontier function is employed using a cross-sectional data of 150 farmers. The results show that elasticities of mean output for all inputs are positive, whereas the computed return to scale reveals that, on average, fish farms exhibit increasing return to scale. The combined effect of operational and farm-specific factors influence technical efficiency although individual effects of some variables may not be significant. Mean technical efficiency is estimated to be 84%, indicating that the possibility of enhancing production given the present state of technology and input level can be achieved in the short run by increasing technical efficiency by 16% through adoption of practices of the best fish farm. [source]

Technical Efficiency in a Semi-Formal Financial Sector: The Case of Mexico,

OXFORD BULLETIN OF ECONOMICS & STATISTICS, Issue 1 2007
Julia Paxton
Abstract The semi-formal financial sector in Mexico is playing an increasingly important role in serving a largely poor, rural clientele. A stochastic frontier with non-monotonic marginal effects [Wang, Journal of Productivity Analysis (2002), Vol. 18, pp. 241,253] reveals a wide disparity in technical efficiency levels among 190 Mexican semi-formal financial intermediaries. The results show that technology, average loan size, rural outreach and institutional age are all positively associated with technical efficiency. The marginal effects vary widely and, in some cases, the effects are non-monotonic over percentile groups. The results indicate that strengthening younger, technologically undeveloped financial institutions will have the strongest marginal benefit in revitalizing the rural financial sector. [source]

Technical Efficiency, Technological Change and Output Growth of Wheat Farms in Saskatchewan

CANADIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 2 2001
Konstantinos Giannakas
This paper utilizes recent advances in stochastic decomposition methodology to examine the level and the driving forces of technical efficiency for an unbalanced panel data set of 100 wheat farms in Saskatchewan during the period 1987,95. The contributions of resource use and total factor productivity to the output growth of these farms are also investigated. The analysis indicates moderate levels of technical efficiency and a considerable variation of efficiency ratings among Saskatchewan farms. The ownership status, composition of labor employed, participation in crop insurance and government income transfer programs, participation in Top Management Workshops, degree of specialization, level of intensification and mechanization of production, type of land used, and the farm debts account for differences in efficiency across wheat farms. Even though the productive efficiency of the farms has been increasing over time, the results show that technological progress was the main source of productivity and output growth during the study period. L'analyse que voici fait appel aux plus récentes améliorations apportées à la méthode de décomposition stochastique pour déterminer le degré d'efficacité technique et les motivations d'ungroupe non pondéré de 100 producteurs de blé de la Saskatchewan entre 1987 et 1995. Les auteurs ont aussi déterminé dans quelle mesure l'exploitation des ressources et la productivité totale des facteurs affectent la croissance de la production dans les exploitations concernées. L'analyse révéle un degré moyen d'efficacité technique et une variation considérable du rendement chez les agriculteurs de la Saskatchewan. La variation du rendement s'explique par divers facteurs comme le type de propriété, la composition de la main-d',uvre, l'inscription aux programmes gouvernementaux d'assurance récolte et de transfert du revenu, la participation à des ateliers de gestion, le degré de spécialisation, le niveau d'industrialisation et de mécanisation de la production, le genre de terres cultivées et la dette de l'exploitant. Même si la productivité des fermes a augmenté au fil des ans, les résultats indiquent que le progrés de la technologie demeure la principale source d'une croissance du rendement et de la production durant la période à l'étude. [source]

A National Study of Efficiency for Dialysis Centers: An Examination of Market Competition and Facility Characteristics for Production of Multiple Dialysis Outputs

HEALTH SERVICES RESEARCH, Issue 3 2002
Hacer Ozgen
Objective. To examine market competition and facility characteristics that can be related to technical efficiency in the production of multiple dialysis outputs from the perspective of the industrial organization model. Study Setting. Freestanding dialysis facilities that operated in 1997 submitted cost report forms to the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), and offered all three outputs,outpatient dialysis, dialysis training, and home program dialysis. Data Sources. The Independent Renal Facility Cost Report Data file (IRFCRD) from HCFA was utilized to obtain information on output and input variables and market and facility features for 791 multiple-output facilities. Information regarding population characteristics was obtained from the Area Resources File. Study Design. Cross-sectional data for the year 1997 were utilized to obtain facility-specific technical efficiency scores estimated through Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). A binary variable of efficiency status was then regressed against its market and facility characteristics and control factors in a multivariate logistic regression analysis. Principal Findings. The majority of the facilities in the sample are functioning technically inefficiently. Neither the intensity of market competition nor a policy of dialyzer reuse has a significant effect on the facilities' efficiency. Technical efficiency is significantly associated, however, with type of ownership, with the interaction between the market concentration of for-profits and ownership type, and with affiliations with chains of different sizes. Nonprofit and government-owned facilities are more likely than their for-profit counterparts to become inefficient producers of renal dialysis outputs. On the other hand, that relationship between ownership form and efficiency is reversed as the market concentration of for-profits in a given market increases. Facilities that are members of large chains are more likely to be technically inefficient. Conclusions. Facilities do not appear to benefit from joint production of a variety of dialysis outputs, which may explain the ongoing tendency toward single-output production. Ownership form does make a positive difference in production efficiency, but only in local markets where competition exists between nonprofit and for-profit facilities. The increasing inefficiency associated with membership in large chains suggests that the growing consolidation in the dialysis industry may not, in fact, be the strategy for attaining more technical efficiency in the production of multiple dialysis outputs. [source]

The impact of integrated aquaculture,agriculture on small-scale farms in Southern Malawi

AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2010
Madan M. Dey
Aquaculture; Malawi; Participatory research; Technical efficiency Abstract Sustainable agricultural intensification is an urgent challenge for Sub-Saharan Africa. One potential solution is to rely on local farmers' knowledge for improved management of diverse on-farm resources and integration among various farm enterprises. In this article, we analyze the farm-level impact of one recent example, namely the integrated aquaculture,agriculture (IAA) technologies that have been developed and disseminated in a participatory manner in Malawi. Based on a 2004 survey of 315 respondents (166 adopters and 149 nonadopters), we test the hypothesis that adoption of IAA is associated with improved farm productivity and more efficient use of resources. Estimating a technical inefficiency function shows that IAA farms were significantly more efficient compared to nonadopters. IAA farms also had higher total factor productivity, higher farm income per hectare, and higher returns to family labor. [source]

Small U.S. dairy farms: can they compete?

AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 2009
Richard Nehring
Pasture-based system; Technical efficiency; Returns to scale; Dairy Abstract The U.S. dairy industry is undergoing rapid structural change, evolving from a structure including many small farmers in the Upper Midwest and Northeast to one that includes very large farms in new production regions. Small farms are struggling to retain competitiveness via improved management and low-input systems. Using data from USDA's Agricultural Resource Management Survey, we determine the extent of U.S. conventional and pasture-based milk production during 2003,2007, and estimate net returns, scale efficiency, and technical efficiency associated with the systems across different operation sizes. We compare the financial performance of small conventional and pasture-based producers with one another and with large-scale producers. A stochastic production frontier is used to analyze performance over the period for conventional and pasture technologies identified using a binomial logit model. Large conventional farms generally outperformed smaller farms using most economic measures,technical efficiency, various profitability measures, and returns to scale. [source]

Measuring technical efficiency in the stochastic varying coefficient frontier model

AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 4 2009
Giannis Karagiannis
Stochastic varying coefficient frontier model; Technical efficiency; Nonneutral frontier models; Olive-farms Abstract Due to the assumption that the best practice methods refer to each input separately instead of the whole set of inputs used by a firm, the benchmark technology as defined in the stochastic varying coefficient frontier model may be infeasible and theoretically improper whenever the maximum response coefficients are not coming from the same production unit. To overcome this problem, we propose alternative measures of output-oriented and single-factor technical efficiencies inspired from the maximum likelihood formulation of the nonneutral frontier model. The empirical results indicate that there are significant differences between the two in terms of the estimated efficiency scores but not significant differences we detected in terms of the efficiency ranking. [source]

Technical efficiency and embodied technical change in the Indonesian pulp and paper industry

JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, Issue 2 2006
Michiel Van Dijk
Abstract In this paper the dynamics of technological change and technical efficiency in the Indonesian pulp and paper industry are analysed. The industry is characterised by rapid growth of output and capacity, with some mills investing heavily in state-of-the-art machinery after 1984. Using stochastic frontier analysis, we distinguish between technological advances of best practice mills and the rate of technological inefficiency. We use a newly constructed micro-level dataset describing the complete population of Indonesian paper mills and paper machines from 1975 to 1997. We find an increasing divergence in technical efficiency over time, indicating that most plants have been not able to keep up with the technological leaders in the industry. Several of the plants operating the latest technologies have lower levels of efficiency than mills operating more outdated equipment. These outcomes qualify the common understanding of dualistic economic structures in developing countries, composed of less efficient traditional and more efficient modern capital intensive establishments. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Backyard Hog Production Efficiency: Evidence from the Philippines,

ASIAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL, Issue 3 2008
Amin W. Mugera
D13; O13; Q12; R30 This article investigates the economic efficiency and the factors associated with efficiency for a sample of 126 hog producers in the Philippines. The input-oriented efficiency indices are computed and bootstrapped using data envelopment analysis. Econometric analysis of the factors influencing the efficiency indices are conducted using the Tobit model. Fixed capital does not influence the efficiency scores, whereas labor does negatively influence the efficiency indices. On average, technical efficiency is low, an indication that most households are not using the most efficient technology. Scale efficiency is fairly high but constrained by lack of operating capital and managerial skills. Technical efficiency is constrained by lack of access to credit and limited experience in hog production. [source]

Measuring technical efficiency in the stochastic varying coefficient frontier model

TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY AND PRODUCTIVITY POTENTIAL OF COCOA FARMERS IN WEST AFRICAN COUNTRIES

ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL ASPECTS OF AGED CARE

ECONOMIC PAPERS: A JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECONOMICS AND POLICY, Issue 1 2005
Warren P. Hogan
The focus of this article is on the Report of the inquiry into residential aged care in Australia. Consideration is given to the results of a confidential survey of financial submissions from providers of aged care. Most attention is given to labour costs and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA). The most important result is the evidence showing providers whatever their size, location, ownership and resident mix, can perform in the top 10 per cent and 25 per cent of providers as measured by EBITDA. Management is vital to the performance of entities whether they be ,for-profit' or ,not-for-profit' entities. Attention is also directed to other studies about efficiency and productivity and modelling. Treating technical efficiency as a measure by which the industry lags behind best practice, the analysis of regulatory efficiency explains much about ways to secure gains in efficiency. [source]

East,west: does it make a difference to hospital efficiencies in Ukraine?

HEALTH ECONOMICS, Issue 11 2006
Anatoly I. Pilyavsky
Abstract Ukraine's history has given it a split personality (e.g. divergent cultural influences on economic and managerial behavior), as was observed in the recent political developments both prior to and following the December 2004 elections. Eastern regions were heavily influenced by Russo-Soviet rule, while western regions have more of a European outlook. This study, which is largely exploratory, compares recent trends in hospital efficiency in Ukraine to see if this split personality manifests itself in differential rates of improvement. Given the inflexibility of Soviet-style planned economies, it is hypothesized that western regions will show greater improvement in economic efficiency that can be attributed to higher levels of managerial and medical entrepreneurship. Data for this study comes from three oblasts (i.e. geopolitical regions), one in the west and two in the east, spanning from 1997 to 2001. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) was used to estimate technical efficiency for the hospitals. After correcting for bias, a second,stage Tobit regression was estimated. Results indicate that hospitals in the west improved efficiencies, while those in the east stayed constant. These western areas of the nation, being more amenable to western management and medical ,business' practice, may be quicker to pick up on new techniques to increase healthcare delivery efficiencies. This may stem from the more limited effects of a shorter history of incorporation into a Soviet-style planned and controlled economy in which individual decision-making and entrepreneurship was suppressed in favor of central decision-making by the state. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Measuring the productive efficiency and clinical quality of institutional long-term care for the elderly

HEALTH ECONOMICS, Issue 3 2005
Juha Laine
Abstract The authors consider the association between productive efficiency and clinical quality in institutional long-term care for the elderly. Cross-sectional data were collected from 122 wards in health-centre hospitals and residential homes in Finland in 2001. Productive efficiency was measured in terms of technical efficiency, which was defined as the unit's distance from the (best practice) production frontier. The analysis employed stochastic production frontier estimation, where technical inefficiency in the production function was specified to be a function of ward characteristics and clinical quality of care. Several quality indicators based on the Resident Assessment Instrument, such as prevalence of pressure ulcers and depression with no treatment, were used in the analysis. The results did not reveal systematic association between technical efficiency and clinical quality of care. However, the prevalence of pressure ulcers, indicating poor quality of care was associated with technical efficiency, a fact which highlights the importance of including quality measures in the assessment of efficiency in long-term care. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Ownership,efficiency relationship and the measurement selection bias

ACCOUNTING & FINANCE, Issue 5 2006
Richard Bozec
G32; H11; L33 Abstract This study analyses the bias in the selection of performance measures for ownership comparisons, which depends on the specific objectives of the firms being compared. Our sample includes 13 Canadian state-owned enterprises (SOEs), commercialized and/or privatized between 1976 and 2001. To replace profitability measures and reduce biases, we propose the use of technical efficiency, which provides for SOEs' specificities. Overall, the results clearly support the view that privatization has no impact on a firm's technical efficiency, the only positive impact being related to a change in the objectives of the firm while using profitability measures. The results of this study raise the question of the validity of comparisons between SOEs and private firms when using profitability indicators. The potential bias in favour of the private firms contributes to a misleading image of the public sector being presented as inferior and inefficient. The use of more sophisticated measures, such as data envelopment analysis, suggests conflicting conclusions. This study also casts doubt on the legitimacy of the privatization program initiated around the world and more specifically in Canada in which the main justification for such a reform has been to increase the performance of SOEs. [source]

A National Study of Efficiency for Dialysis Centers: An Examination of Market Competition and Facility Characteristics for Production of Multiple Dialysis Outputs

INEQUALITY, INCOMPLETE CONTRACTS, AND THE SIZE DISTRIBUTION OF BUSINESS FIRMS,

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 2 2010
Thomas Gall
This article analyzes the effects of intrafirm bargaining on the formation of firms in an economy with imperfect capital markets and contracting constraints. In equilibrium, wealth inequality induces a heterogeneous distribution of firm sizes, allowing for firms both too small and too large in terms of technical efficiency. The findings connect well to empirical facts such as the missing middle of firm-size distributions in developing countries. The model can encompass a nonmonotonic relationship between aggregate output and inequality. It turns out that an inflow of capital may indeed decrease output in absolute terms. [source]

Evaluating the efficiency of a small hotel chain with a Malmquist productivity index

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH, Issue 3 2005
Carlos Pestana Barros
Abstract By applying data envelopment analysis (DEA) a two-stage procedure is followed to evaluate the determinants of efficiency of a Portuguese public-owned hotel chain, Enatur for the period 1999 to 2001. In the first stage the paper estimates the Malmquist index and breaks it down into technical efficiency and technological change. In the second stage, a Tobit econometric model, designed to relate efficiency scores, along with other managerial and contextual variables, is used to identify the efficiency drivers. The implications of this study for managerial purposes are then discussed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Identifying technically efficient fishing vessels: a non-empty, minimal subset approach

JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECONOMETRICS, Issue 4 2007
Alfonso Flores-Lagunes
Stochastic frontier models are often employed to estimate fishing vessel technical efficiency. Under certain assumptions, these models yield efficiency measures that are means of truncated normal distributions. We argue that these measures are flawed, and use the results of Horrace (2005) to estimate efficiency for 39 vessels in the Northeast Atlantic herring fleet, based on each vessel's probability of being efficient. We develop a subset selection technique to identify groups of efficient vessels at pre-specified probability levels. When homogeneous production is assumed, inferential inconsistencies exist between our methods and the methods of ranking the means of the technical inefficiency distributions for each vessel. When production is allowed to be heterogeneous, these inconsistencies are mitigated. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

The Impact of Mergers and Acquisitions on the Efficiency of the US Banking Industry: Further Evidence

JOURNAL OF BUSINESS FINANCE & ACCOUNTING, Issue 1-2 2008
Adel A. Al-Sharkas
Abstract:, Using the Stochastic Frontier Approach (SFA), this study investigates the cost and profit efficiency effects of bank mergers on the US banking industry. We also use the non-parametric technique of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to evaluate the production structure of merged and non-merged banks. The empirical results indicate that mergers have improved the cost and profit efficiencies of banks. Further, evidence shows that merged banks have lower costs than non-merged banks because they are using the most efficient technology available (technical efficiency) as well as a cost minimizing input mix (allocative efficiency). The results suggest that there is an economic rational for future mergers in the banking industry. Finally, mergers may allow the banking industry to take advantage of the opportunities created by improved technology. [source]

Small U.S. dairy farms: can they compete?

Measuring technical efficiency in the stochastic varying coefficient frontier model

The impact of the 1999 CAP reforms on the efficiency of the COP sector in Spain

AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 3 2009
Fatima Lambarraa
Agenda 2000; Distance function; Efficiency; Spanish COP sector Abstract The cereal, oilseeds, and protein crop sector (COP) occupies a prominent position within the European Union's agricultural sector. Within Spain, the COP sector accounts for almost a third of total Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund expenses, and half of the utilized agricultural area (UAA). The COP sector is not only relevant because of its physical and economic magnitude, but also because of the political attention it receives. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reforms that occurred during the 1990s paid special attention to this sector. This article aims to determine the impacts of Agenda 2000 on a sample of Spanish COP farmers' production decisions by using an output-oriented stochastic distance function. The distance function allows for an assessment of the reform-motivated changes on total output, input used, input composition, and crop mix. It also permits an assessment of the impacts of the reform on farms' technical efficiency. Results show that the reform has shifted the production frontier inward and changed output composition in favor of voluntary set-aside land. With respect to input composition, Agenda 2000 induced a decrease in land, fertilizers, pesticides, and other inputs in favor of labor. In addition, Agenda 2000 has had a negative impact on technical efficiency. [source]

Evaluating the impact of agricultural extension on farms' performance in Crete: a nonneutral stochastic frontier approach

AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 2 2007
Ariel Dinar
Farm performance; Extension; Stochastic frontier Abstract This article attempts to integrate the production- and the efficiency-based approaches for evaluating the impact of extension on farms' performance. For this purpose the nonneutral production frontier model is used, and the empirical analysis refers to a sample of farms from Crete, Greece. The empirical results support the proposed formulation instead of either the production- or the efficiency-based formulations as extension was found to have a statistically significant effect on closing both the technology and management gaps. Public and private extension services were found to be competitive in the production function and complementary in the technical inefficiency effect function. In addition, farms using both public and private extension services achieved a higher degree of technical efficiency than those using either public or private extension services, and farms with no extension services were found to be the least efficient. [source]

Examining the technical efficiency of rice producers in Bangladesh

JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, Issue 1 2007
Kelvin Balcombe
Abstract Despite record national output in the early years of this decade there is widespread concern that rice yields in Bangladesh are below those attainable, and that given future population growth this may constrain achievement of food security and poverty reduction objectives. A frequent response to this problem is that farmers could close the gap between actual farm yields and potential yields identified in field trials if farmers who are technically inefficient could improve their current farming practices. This paper estimates and explains technical efficiency for a sample of rice farmers in Bangladesh employing Bayesian methods. The results provide insights into the distribution of technical efficiency and identify important influences on rice growing. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Technical efficiency and embodied technical change in the Indonesian pulp and paper industry

Elements Which Delimitate Technical Efficiency of Fish Farms in Ghana

Export orientation and technical efficiency: clothing firms in China

MANAGERIAL AND DECISION ECONOMICS, Issue 7 2010
Vincent Mok
Based on 287 of the largest clothing manufacturing firms in southern China in terms of output value, we employed data envelopment analysis to estimate the technical efficiency of the sample firms. A regression analysis was conducted to examine the effects of export orientation on technical efficiency. Our results suggest a U-shaped relationship between export ratio and technical efficiency. The specific nature of the industry in Guangdong province can explain that clothing firms with a high degree of sales in the domestic market or with a high level of export orientation experience a higher level of technical efficiency than those firms trying to conquer both the local and the overseas markets. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]