Typically, the error term in stochastic frontier models is assumed to be positively skewed; however, efficiency scores are biased if this assumption is violated. This paper considers the case in which also negative skewness is allowed in the model. In contrast to other approaches, this skewness is...

This article uses panel data estimation techniques to examine technical efficiency of individual dairy farms in northern Germany. To the extent that agricultural production is characterised by heterogeneous production conditions, estimation techniques that do not account for unobserved...

While productivity growth in electricity generation is associated with multiple positive effects from an economic and environmental perspective, measuring it is challenging. This paper proposes a framework to estimate and decompose productivity growth for a sector characterized by multiple...

Scale characteristics are key properties of production functions that determine optimal firm sizes, and have considerable policy implications for sectors undergoing restructuring. However, estimates of scale characteristics typically vary with the assumptions of the underlying empirical model....

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...

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...