The purpose of this study is to analyze the level of cost efficiency of Swiss Post's postal delivery units to enable policy makers' as well as Swiss Post to decide on the reactions to market changes. In particular, we use different panel data models to assess cost efficiency in these units to...

The purpose of this study is to analyze the cost structure of Swiss Post’s postal outlets. In particular, the idea is to assess economies of scale and scope in post offices and franchised postal agencies. Information on their optimal size and production structure is of importance from the...

We analyze the technical efficiency of German and Swiss urban public transport companies by means of SFA. In transport networks we might face different network structures or complexities, not observed, but influencing the production process. The unobserved factors are typically modeled as...

The electricity generation in Switzerland is mainly based on hydropower (55% of total production). The exploitation of water in the hydropower sector can generate significant so-called resource rents. These are defined by the surplus return above the value of capital, labor, materials and energy...

Pressure on health care systems due to the increasing expenditures of the elderly population is pushing policy makers to adopt new regulation and payment schemes for nursing home services. We sketch a simple theoretical model to predict the behavior of nursing homes under different payment...

This paper examines the cost efficiency in the nursing home industry, an issue of concern to Swiss policy makers because of the explosive growth of national expenditure on elderly care and the aging of the population. A stochastic cost frontier model with a translog function has been applied to...

This paper investigates socioeconomic determinants of outpatient antibiotic consumption in Europe. Comparable data on antibiotic use measured in the defined daily doses per 1000 inhabitants (DID) are currently provided by the ESAC project. Results from applied econometric estimations for panel...

The regulation on prescribing and dispensing of antibiotics has a double purpose: to enhance access to antibiotic treatment and to reduce the inappropriate use of drugs. Nevertheless, incentives to dispensing physicians may lead to inefficiencies. We sketch a theoretical model of the market for...

In Switzerland, nursing home services are mainly provided by regulated public and private nonprofit organizations. Some of them are created by local governments as foundations. This provides a unique setting to analyze the impact of the institutional form on the performance of nursing homes. We...

In this paper we investigate households' demand for school meals using a stated preferences approach. Data are collected through phone-structured interviews to 905 residents with children in the German-speaking region of Switzerland during 2007. A Poisson model with random effects is used to...