This paper explores the consequences for parametric and non-parametric efficiency levels and rankings when using grouped instead of individual Decision Making Units (DMU). The bias results due to the differences of the grouped DMUs frontier compared to the individual DMUs frontier. Monte Carlo...

This paper investigates the sources of total factor productivity growth in the German manufacturing sector, 1981-1998. Decomposition formulae for aggregate productivity growth are used to identify the effects of structural change and entry-exit on aggregate productivity growth. Documented is a...

The study is devoted to the measurement of productivity and efficiency change in Chinese farming sector over the reform process in the 1980s and 1990s. Within an output distance function framework, an index of total factor productivity is decomposed into technical and allocative efficiency,...

A detailed decomposition of the sources of the Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth index within an output distance function framework was carried out, looking at the following components: technical change, change in technical efficiency, scale component, and violations of the profit...

This paper investigates the factors that explain the level and dynamics of manufacturing firm productive efficiency. In our empirical analysis, we use a unique sample of about 39,000 firms in 256 industries from the German Cost Structure Census over the years 1992-2005. We estimate the...

The present paper examines one of the central elements of evolutionary thinking - competition formalized by the replicator dynamics mechanism. Using data on product characteristics of automobiles sold on the German domestic market over the period 2001-2006, we construct a competitiveness or...