an unprecedented wave of consolidation. A growing body of empirical literature has attempted to measure the efficiency … mergers yield economies of scope or gains in managerial efficiency. …

. In the long run efficiency gains dominate over the market power effect, leading to more favorable prices for consumers. …

In this paper, a parametric cost frontier for the credit card market is specified (�stochastic frontier approachï …, cost structure, factor substitution); policy implications. The Italian case study indicates that: the credit card industry … more intermediaries tend to veer away from their efficient cost frontier. Moreover, the cost structure borne by firms is …

The capability of a country's public sector to provide high-quality goods and services in a cost-effective way is … crucial to fostering long-term growth. In this paper we study the determinants of public service efficiency (PSE) and in …

at assessing the quality and the efficiency of public services in Italy. We consider services provided by the central … other countries and there are large regional differences in terms of both quality and efficiency, regardless of the level of …

over 600 Italian banks over the period 1989-2000. We estimate stochastic cost and profit functions allowing for individual … adoption of new technologies. We find that both cost and profit frontier shifts are strongly correlated with IT capital …