This note illustrates the potential impact of the specification of a convex production technology on establishing minimal costs compared to the use of a non-convex technology when benchmarking electricity distributors. This methodological reflection is mainly motivated by recent engineering...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand how a major retailer like Kmart lost its dominant position in the American retail industry. Design/methodology/approach: This paper contains a decomposition of profit change into meaningful economic drivers using a methodology that combines...

We study the economic, financial and distributional performance of the United States Postal Service subsequent to its 1971 reorganization. We investigate the economic sources of productivity change, (technical change, change in cost efficiency, and scale economies), and the distribution of the...

A principios de los años 80 se implantó en España un sistema de regulación para el sector eléctrico conocido como Marco Legal Estable, y que pretendía dar una solución a la situación de precariedad económica y financiera por la que atravesaba esta industria en esos momentos. Este marco...

This paper proposes a new approach for gauging the performance of branch managers of a financial institution by defining a Measure of Internal Performance (MIP). Our proposal is different from others existing in the literature in two main aspects. Firstly, it is consistent with the requirements...

In this paper we analyze the levels of technical efficiency and productivity growth attained by Spanish insurance companies during a period of deregulation. We compute Malmquist productivity indexes using the estimates of parametric distance function for several specialized insurance branches....

This paper offers a unique quantitative evaluation of the distribution of the welfare of a water privatization experience in Mali among labor, investors, intermediate input providers, users and taxpayers. The assessment is based on indicator duality and production theory. The paper shows that...