We examine the educational production function and efficiency of public school districts in Illinois. Using nonparametric kernel methods, we find that most traditional schooling inputs are irrelevant in determining test scores (even in a very general setting). Property tax caps are the only...

This paper examines micro-level channels of how financial development can affect macroeconomic outcomes like the level of income and export intensity. We investigate theoretically and empirically how financial constraints affect a firm's innovation and export activities, using unique firm survey...

The purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, it compares the performance of various panel data models in estimating technical efficiency in production. Second, it applies various stochastic frontier panel data models to estimate the technical efficiency of Iran's cotton production and to...

This study applies a panel data stochastic frontier analysis to country data towards examining the effect of gender equity in labor market opportunities upon efficiency in the production of GDP. It finds that aggregate technical efficiency is improved by a widening of women's labor market...

The main objective of this study is to investigate the impact of corporate R&D activities on firms' performance, measured by labour productivity. To this end, the stochastic frontier technique is applied, basing the analysis on a unique unbalanced longitudinal dataset consisting of 532 top...

We analyze the efficiency and productivity growth of a representative sample of Portuguese hospitals from 1997 to 2004, using an innovative approach by employing the directional distance function and the Luenberger productivity indicator. The primary advantage of our approach is that both input...

Using the 1997-1998 New South Wales public-hospitals comparison data, we investigate the hospital-level inefficiency by applying a stochastic-frontier multiproduct cost function. We use a flexible translog cost function to reduce the measurement errors of the outputs of the hospital. The main...

This chapter analyzes the effect of intangible investment on firm efficiency with an emphasis on its software component. Stochastic production frontier approach is used to simultaneously estimate the production function and the determinants of technical efficiency in the software intensive...

This paper studies whether skilled migrants contribute to the host country's "productive efficiency" (Farrell, 1957) using input-output and immigration sectoral data for seven industries in twelve countries during the period 1999-2001. We find that skilled migrants contribute positively to a...