This paper employs a mixed two-stage approach to estimate and explain differences in the cross-country efficiency of ten Australian, five UK and eight Canadian banks over the period 1988 to 2008 using stochastic distance, cost and profit frontiers. The first stage estimates efficiency scores for...

Given the continuing uncertainty about whether family firms enjoy lower agency costs, this article hypothesizes that a combination of the effects of family ownership, altruism and self-control is instead at play. To begin with, family ownership can indeed reduce agency costs through better...

The article is devoted to investigating some fundamentals about a residue cracking gasification (RCG) process for petroleum residues which integrates the catalytic cracking of the residue and the gasification of the cracking-generated coke. Three heat carrier particles were tested to show their...

This study fills a huge gap in literature by providing some evidence on the level and determinants of bank efficiency in a Pacific island context. DEA results show that overall efficiency levels may be lower than in Australia, the home country of major banks. Dynamic GMM and panel data results...

The stochastic frontier analysis is employed to investigate efficiency of publicly listed Australian banks over the period 1985 to 2008. The results suggest that technical, cost and profit efficiency of Australian banks have improved over time. Large banks have attained a higher level of cost...

Olefins are one of the most important oil derivatives widely used in industry. To reduce the dependence of olefins industry on oil, China is increasing the production of olefins from alternative energy resources, especially from coal. This study is concerned with the opportunities and obstacles...

Previous studies show that the concept of L♮-convexity is helpful in characterizing the optimal policy for some inventory models with positive leadtimes. Such examples include the lost-sales inventory model by Zipkin (2008). On the structure of lost-sales inventory models. Operations Research,...