The paper investigates the impact of subsidies and of para-agriculture on the technical efficiency of organic farms in Switzerland, Austria and Southern Germany. The data-set consists of bookkeeping data with 1,704 observations in the years 2003 to 2005. Technical efficiency is modelled using a...

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...

In this paper we compare two flexible estimators of technical efficiency in a cross-sectional setting: the nonparametric kernel SFA estimator of Fan, Li and Weersink (1996) to the nonparametric bias corrected DEA estimator of Kneip, Simar and Wilson (2008). We assess the finite sample...

We develop a network technology model for pollution abatement that distinguishes between the two primary forms that abatement can take: Prevention of emissions from occurring in the first place, and treatment of any emissions that are generated by the production process. Our network model...

Forest fuel defined as branches and tops (GROT) of harvested trees represents a large share of forest biomass and is increasingly viewed as a potential energy source. This study assesses the economic potentials of forest bioenergy production in Swedish forests, using a network data envelopment...

When analyzing what determines the efficiency of production, regressing efficiency scores estimated by DEA on explanatory variables has much intuitive appeal. Simar and Wilson (2007) show that this nai͏̈ve two-stage estimation procedure suffers from severe flaws, that render its results, and...