SEMIPARAMETRIC STOCHASTIC FRONTIER ANALYSIS OF SPECIALIST SURGEON CLINICS

A purposive sample of South African specialist surgeons was used to nonparametrically estimate production relations for single ouptut and multiple output production processes. The analysis was further extended to incorporate parametric assumptions associated with stochastic frontier analysis to provide estimates of technical efficiency within surgical practices. The results point to high levels of inefficiency, as well as consistency between single output and multiple output models.