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...

To quickly adapt to technological change and developments, and thus remain competitive, firms increasingly resort to the use of external technology. This paper investigates whether and to what extent the acquisition of external disembodied technology affects the efficiency and productivity in...

This paper primarily reviews the panel stochastic frontier (SF) model in which the composite error term εit has four components, i.e. εit=τi−ηi+vit−uit, where ηi and uit are the persistent and transient inefficiency components, τi is the random firm effect and vit is the random noise....

A general assumption of the standard hedonic price model is that producers produce outputs/ services efficiently, and deviations from this situation are assumed to involve either overcharging or undercharging. Using the profit maximising behaviour, we derive an alternative hedonic model to show...

The traditional approach to measuring allocative efficiency is based on input prices, which are rarely known at the firm level. This paper proposes a new approach to measure allocative efficiency which is based on the output-oriented distance to the frontier in a profit technical efficiency...