This paper investigates the existence of non-linear dependence in 10-years government bonds price quotes for the period 1995:08-1998:10, for 12 countries. If present, non-linear dependence would contradict the random walk model and the financial markets weak form efficiency hypothesis. Using...

This paper investigates the existence of non-linear dependence in Portuguese financial time series namely stock exchange indexes returns. Non-linear dependence may exist in a series even if we have already concluded for the lack of linear dependence. If present, non-linear dependence would...

We follow the framework of Afonso et al. (Public Choice, 123(3–4):321–47, 2005), to look at the public expenditure of 20 OECD countries for the period 2009–2013, from an efficiency perspective.We construct Public Sector Performance and Public Sector Efficiency indicators and use Data...

We assess how “big” government should reasonably be in a number of advanced countries. First, we will link the recent findings of Data Envelope Analysis on efficient public expenditure with the question of the size of the government. Second, we report descriptive analysis of various...

We investigate the effect of a local territorial reform, which reduced the number of parishes, on municipality spending efficiency in the period 2011-2016. We build a composite output indicator and use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to compute efficiency scores, which we then analyze through a...

This paper evaluates the relevance of the taxation for public spending efficiency in a sample of OECD economies in the period 2003-2017. First, we compute the data envelopment analysis (DEA) scores and the Malmquist productivity index to measure the change in total factor productivity, the...

This study follows the framework of Afonso, Schuknecht, and Tanzi (2005), aiming to look at the public expenditure of 20 OECD countries for the period 2009-2013, from the per-spective of efficiency and assess if these developed countries are performing efficiently compared to each other. Public...

We investigate the effect on municipality spending efficiency of a local property tax reform, which reduced in 2008 the upper limit of the property tax. We compute municipality efficiency scores via data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) from 2005 to 2011, and then we rely in a panel data set to...

We link governments’ spending efficiency scores, to sovereign debt assessments made by financial markets´, more specifically by three rating agencies (Standard & Poors, Moody´s and Fitch). Public efficiency scores are computed via data envelopment analysis. Then, we rely notably on ordered...

In a cross section of OECD countries we replace the macroeconomic production function by a production possibility frontier, TFP being the composite effect of efficiency scores and possibility frontier changes. We consider, for the periods 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, one output: GDP per worker; three...