Non-parametric evaluation of returns to scale of production units in standard DEA models becomes problematic when their underlying technologies involve negative data. The methodology recently offered by Allahyar and Rostamy-Malkhalifeh (2015) (hence after called ARM model) is of some help to...

The Great Recession focused attention on large financial institutions and systemic risk. We investigate whether large size provides any cost advantages to the economy and, if so, whether these cost advantages are due to technological scale economies or too-big-to-fail subsidies. Estimating scale...

Earlier studies found little evidence of scale economies at large banks; later studies using data from the 1990s uncovered such evidence, providing a rationale for very large banks seen worldwide. Using more recent data, we estimate scale economies using two production models. The standard...

In non-competitive market characterized by heterogeneous firms and price uncertainty, we discuss the measurement of economies of scale and scope due to process indivisibilities arising from the task-specific production processes of multiproduct firm. Two competing DEA cost models — one based...

Previous attempts to understand the functioning of cooperative banks have often considered them as being similar to credit unions. However, we argue that credit unions are only a subset of cooperative financial institutions and the models used to describe their behavior cannot be generalized to...

We use French microdata to test an ubiquitous property of firm-based models of importing. When firm efficiency is factor neutral and input prices and qualities are common across firms, firm size should have no effect on expenditure shares on the different products and varieties sourced, holding...

The analysis focuses on the extent to which the production function of firms exhibits systematical differences regarding the employment size. We evaluate the extent to which differences in the elasticities of substitution between skill-groups are of the magnitude to explain the firm-size effect...