This paper develops a slack-based decomposition of profit efficiency based on a direc- tional distance function. It complements Cooper, Pastor, Aparicio and Borras (2011).

When analyzing productivity and efficiency of firms, stochastic frontier models are very attractive because they allow, as in typical regression models, to introduce some noise in the Data Generating Process. Most of the approaches so far have been using very restrictive fully parametric...

In industry sectors where market prices are unavailable it is common to represent multiple-input multiple-output production technologies using distance functions. Econometric estimation of such functions is complicated by the fact that more than one variable in the function may be endogenous. In...

Productivity and efficiency change lies at the heart of some of the key challenges facing China’s economy. This paper contributes to an understanding of TFP change by computing and decomposing provincial-level Hicks-Moorsteen (H-M) total factor productivity (TFP) indexes for the period...

In this paper we introduce a scale elasticity measure based on directional distance function for multi-output-multi-input technologies and explore its fundamental properties. Specifically, we derive necessary and sufficient condition for equivalence of the scale elasticity measure based on the...

Profitability change can be decomposed into the product of a total factor productivity (TFP) index and an index of relative price change. O’Donnell (2008) shows that the TFP index can be further decomposed into an index of technical change and various indexes of efficiency change –...

In this paper, we study estimation of fixed and random effects nonparametric panel data models using penalized splines and its mixed model variant. We define a "within" and a "dummy variable" estimator and show their equivalence which can be used as an argument for consistency of the dummy...

DPIN Version 1.0 is a fast userâ€friendly program for computing and Decomposing Productivity Index Numbers. The program uses the conceptual framework developed by O'Donnell (2008) and the data envelopment analysis (DEA) programs developed by O'Donnell (2009). This paper describes the...

The product test asks the product of a quantity index number and a price index number to equal the corresponding value change. The literature treats the product test as being so important that it is used to identify acceptable index number pairs, and to construct implicit index numbers when an...