In this paper, we show the importance of accounting for heterogeneity among sample firms in stochastic frontier analysis. For a fairly homogenous sample of German savings and cooperative banks, we analyze how alternative theoretical assumptions regarding the nature of heterogeneity can be...

This paper attempts to estimate comparable efficiency scores for European banks operating in the Single Market in the EU. Using a data set of more than 5000 large commercial banks from all major European banking markets over the period 1993-2004, the application of meta-frontiers enables us to...

In this paper, we consider how Russian Agriculture has developed since the constitution of the Russian Federation. The analysis is based on Oblast level data of 75 territorial units during the period from 1993 to 1998 and is focusing on technical efficiency (TE), technological change, and (both...

In this paper we investigate the determinants of local governments' technical efficiency in road maintenance for a panel of German counties using a broad variety of estimation approaches. More specifically, we calculate efficiency indices using non-parametric (DEA) and parametric (stochastic...

Economic reform in China helped transform the structure and volume of agricultural production and resulted in significant changes in efficiency and productivity. This paper measures agricultural technical efficiency (TE) and total factor productivity (TFP) in China by allowing producers...

Using micro-level panel data of about 35,000 firms from the German Cost Structure Census, we analyze the differences of technical efficiency across industries. Technical efficiency is estimated by firms' fixed effects. One striking result is that the distribution of technical efficiency across...

This paper analyzes the distribution of technical efficiency within manufacturing industries. Using a representative sample of 35,000 firms in 255 industries of the German cost structure census, technical efficiencies are estimated by applying a deterministic frontier production function with...

The stochastic frontier model with heterogeneous technical efficiency explained by exogenous variables is augmented with a sparse spatial autoregressive component for a cross-section data, and a spatial-temporal component for a panel data. An estimation procedure that takes advantage of the...