This paper argues that the conventional definition of the elasticity of complementarity is not well suited to deal with the case of increasing returns. It proposes a slightly different formula, that uses a distance function formulation instead of a production function. The proposed definition...

The principal aim of this paper is to estimate a stochastic frontier cost function and an inefficiency effects model in the analysis of the primary health care services purchased by the public authority and supplied by 180 providers in 1996 in Catalonia. The evidence from our sample does not...

Improved land-use efficiency in agricultural production is crucial to meet increasing demand for agricultural commodities using the finite area of arable land worldwide. By applying a spatial autoregressive stochastic frontier methodology to county-level data spanning from 1980 to 2011, we...

We examine the educational production function and efficiency of public school districts in Illinois. Using nonparametric kernel methods, we find that most traditional schooling inputs are irrelevant in determining test scores (even in a very general setting). Property tax caps are the only...