Economic development requires the use of natural resources. Increasing population makes increasing demand on such resources thereby leading to the degradation of the environment. Excessive use of resources can lead to a situation where declining supply can no longer satisfy the demand. Hence,...

In industrialised countries water service providers (WSPs) must provide an appropriate level of service with an acceptable performance at an acceptable cost to customers. In the UK a move towards sustainable development is now also a major goal for WSPs. However, the imposition of institutional...

In this study the nature and extent of efficiency and productivity growth in deposit-taking institutions is investigated using nonparametric frontier techniques. Employing Malmquist indices, productivity growth is decomposed into technical efficiency change and technological change for a sample...

The current study was motivated by statements made by the Economic Strategies Committee that Singapore’s recent productivity levels in services were well below countries such as the US, Japan and Hong Kong. Massive employment of foreign workers was cited as the reason for poor productivity...

Com a abertura comercial na década de 90, muitos setores da economia que estavam em processo de industrialização se viram em dificuldade em enfrentar uma nova estrutura de competição, isso por sua vez acarretou numa industrialização tardia para algumas empresas do setor industrial,...

The U.S. live hog production has undergone a significant structural change characterized by a trend toward larger operations. Experts argue that there is a cost advantage for larger farms due to industrialization and increased management intensity. One important element in production, mainly for...

We propose a test of the Porter hypothesis for the Dutch horticulture sector, using a stochastic production frontier analysis allowing for an inclusion of policy variables to account for the effect of environmental policy of firm performance. We find considerable heterogeneity in the way firms...

The analysis of technical efficiency (TE) on the small-scale fishery is relevant for several reasons. While this type of fishery is highly common in developing countries like Mexico, there are a very limited number of analyses assessing their efficiency. Indeed, there is no precise information...

The measurement of productivity fluctuations has been the focus of decades-long interest. In addition to broad structural forces driving productivity changes, there is more recent interest in measuring and identifying the heterogeneous forces driving these changes. A major force is...

The paper measures the U.S. Farm Credit System’s technical efficiency from 2000 to 2009 using a stochastic frontier production function model with quarterly unbalanced panel data. The paper's results suggest that the FCS has not efficiently utilized their inputs. On an average, the system...