This paper attempts to examine, using data envelopment analysis, the productivity performance trends of the Indian commercial banks for the period: 1997-98 - 2004-05. Our broad empirical findings are indicative in many ways. First, the increasing average annual trends in technical efficiency for...

In the nonparametric data envelopment analysis literature, scale elasticity is evaluated in two alternative ways: using either the technical efficiency model or the cost efficiency model. This evaluation becomes problematic in several situations, for example (a) when input proportions change in...

Neoclassical growth accounting is a methodology used to measure the contribution of different production factors to economic growth and to indirectly compute the rate of technological progress. This model assumes constant returns to scale and perfectly competitive factor markets, which implies...

We measure eco-efficiency of an economy by means of an augmented Leontief input-output model extended by constraints for primary inputs. Using a multi-objective optimization model the eco-efficiency frontier of the economy is generated. The results of these multi-objective optimization problems...

In recent years there has been increasing interest in the question of how inequality affects economic growth. This growing interest has recently stimulated new theoretical aswell as empirical research. Some existing theoretical models propose income inequality is detrimental to growth, but...

The integration of European services markets and the associated deregulation measures open up formerly segmented markets to competition from the Single Market. The purpose of this study is to propose a method of measuring the effects of liberalization on technical efficiency, the existence of...

The Single Market Project of the European Commission was supposed to change the financial service industry markedly. We provide a first attempt to assess its consequences on the insurance industry in Germany, the largest insurance market within the European Union. For this purpose we apply a...

The current demographic developments and their consequences for workforce ageing challenge the sustainability of intergenerational transfers and economic growth. A shrinking share of the young workforce will have to support a growing share of elderly, non-working people. Therefore, the...

Matched employer-employee (panel) data sets are gaining increasing importance in the analysis of labour markets. In collaboration with Statistics Austria we recently initiated the set up of a matched employer-employee panel data set for Austria, which covers the years 2002-2005. The aim of the...