With prospective payment of hospitals becoming more common, measuring their performance is gaining in importance. However, the standard cost frontier model yields biased efficiency scores because it ignores technological heterogeneity between hospitals. In this paper, efficiency scores are...

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it measures the efficiency in the provision of public goods by local jurisdictions applying Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Second, it relates ef- ficiency scores to a fiscal equalization scheme designed to mitigate the negative consequences of...

It is a widely held opinion that apprenticeship training represents a net investment for training firms, and that therefore firms only train if they have the possibility to recoup these investments after the training period. A recent study using a new firm-level dataset for Switzerland showed,...

In this paper, we analyze the completed highest education degree of two birth cohorts (1934-1943 and 1964-1973) in Switzerland, using data from the 1999 wave of the Swiss Household Panel. As expected, the fraction of tertiary graduates has increased over time, for women more so than for men....

This paper examines costs in the Swiss nursing home industry, an issue of concern to Swiss policy makers because of the explosion of elderly care costs and the aging of the population. The paper considers estimation of a translog cost function employing panel data for a sample of 36 nonprofit...

Die Studie untersucht die Eigenschaften der Unternehmen, die als Erste in einen sich neu oeffnenden Markt investieren. Fuer den ersten Investor bestehen gewisse Vorteile (first-mover-advantages), die einen moeglichst fruehen Eintritt in den Markt nahe legen. Andererseits fuehrt die politische...

In this paper we have examined the scale and cost inefficiency of a sample of Swiss electricity distribution utilities. To do so, we have considered estimation of a stochastic frontier average cost model using the approach suggested by Schmidt and Sickles (1984) for panel data. A translog cost...

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the optimal scale of local jurisdictions (cantons) in Switzerland applying Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to the years 2000 to 2004. Aggregate output performance indicators for four local government activities (administration, education, health, and...