Research on productive efficiency at the firm level has developed as an important and active strand of research the last decades, both within operations research, management science and economics. However, the interests pursued within the fields have had some differences regarding sound...

Agricultural inputs are peculiar in nature as an asymmetry in their roles can be identified during the production process. These inputs can be grouped into a set of growth inputs or a set of facilitating inputs. The inputs affecting biological or physiological growth from the inside of the plant...

We compute DEA efficiency scores and Malmquist indexes for a panel data set comprising 68 Portuguese public hospitals belonging to the National Health System (NHS) in the period 2000-2005, when several units started being run in an entrepreneurial framework. With data on hospital services' and...

This paper applies a new variant of data envelopment analysis model to examine the performance of Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India. The findings show a significant heterogeneity visible in the cost efficiency scores within 19 years. The decline in performance after 1994-95 can be taken...

This paper critically re-examines the concept of returns to scale vis-à-vis economies of scale since the writings of Adam Smith by relating the former to the concept of production unit and the latter to the concept of firm. Though to date some valuable progress has been made exploring the...

In this study an attempt is made to examine, using data envelopment analysis, the productivity trends in the Indian Pig Iron and Sponge Iron industry for the period after economic liberalization. The methods of cross-efficiency matrix, distribution of virtual inputs and returns to scale are also...

Two alternative estimation models, i.e., a translog cost function and data envelopment analysis (DEA) based on a cost model are compared and contrasted in revealing scale economies in the Indian commercial banking sector. The empirical results indicate that while the translog cost model exhibits...

Radial and non-radial DEA models are distinguished on the basis of the presence of slacks. Viewing slacks as a possible source of inefficiency, this paper makes an empirical attempt to assess the relative strengths of these two sets of models in examining the total factor productivity change and...

This paper empirically examines the different variants of data envelopment analysis (DEA) models to select the large cap market securities in India in both constant and variable returns to scale environments. The results of this exercise are summarized as follows. First, there is a fall in...

The ratio definition of efficiency has the form of a productivity measure. But the weights are endogenous variables and they do not function as weights in a productivity index proper. It is shown that extended Farrell measures of efficiency can all be given an interpretation as productivity...