This paper uses panel data to estimate a two-tiered instead of a one-tiered frontier model. The innovation is to develop a two-step maximum likelihood procedure yielding consistent estimates of inefficiency, while at the same time accounting for heterogeneity. The model is applied by estimating...

Reform of Chinese economy, especially the Urban Reform announced in 1984, has decentralized government control over the economy and encouraged freer trade, domestic as well as international. Consequently, strengths and weaknesses of geographic regions emerge and each region may specialize...

This paper proposes wage premiums for jobs in high black proportion cities as a source of the continuing economic disadvantages for poor blacks. The estimated hedonic model of individual wages confirms the presence of such wage premiums which result in high labor costs and economic stagnation in...

Poverty has been ubiquitous throughout history and across nations. It exists even in the richest nations amidst the unprecedented prosperity of the 21st century. The promises of the global era do not lessen the urgency of coping with the poverty problem of the society. This paper introduces the...