This paper argues that the conventional definition of the elasticity of complementarity is not well suited to deal with the case of increasing returns. It proposes a slightly different formula, that uses a distance function formulation instead of a production function. The proposed definition...

This paper rehabilitates effective protection. In general equilibrium, the usual definition (the percentage change in value added per unit induced by the tariff structure) corresponds to no economically interesting magnitude. The effective rate of protection for sector j is defined here as the...

This paper develops a consistent bootstrap estimation procedure to obtain confidence intervals for nonparametric measures of productive efficiency. Although the methodology is illustrated in terms of technical efficiency measured by output distance functions, the technique can be easily extented...

Recent developments in the econometric estimation of multi-output, multi-input distance functions have provided a promising new solution to the single-output restriction implicit in the standard production function. However, a suspicion that regressor endogeneity may introduce possible...

This paper is motivated by the empirical observation that in many studies the elasticity of output with respect to labour is often negative and/or insignificant. The present study applies multiple output models to estimate the technical efficiency of enterprises in the international electricity,...

This paper presents a network model incorporating customer satisfaction into efficiency and productivity measures. The network consists of a production node and a consumption node and offers flexibility in modelling the production and consumption process. Allocation of input resources to...

Agricultural policy reform has been an important source of change in the Chinese agricultural sector. The reforms led to productivity growth and helped China in pursuing its self-sufficiency goal especially in the grain sector. To analyse whether observable productivity growth stems from...

This study adjusts 1960-1996 agricultural productivity gains in a panel of Great Plains states to account for the discharge of pesticide and nitrogen effluents into the environment. The agricultural-environmental technology is approximated with translog distance functions that allow us to...

This paper introduces an index of tax optimality that measures the distance of some current tax structure from the optimal tax structure in the presence of public goods. In doing so, we derive a [0, 1] number that reveals immediately how far the current tax configuration is from the optimal one...

This paper proposes an approach to specify and estimate multiple input, multiple output production frontiers and technical efficiency using a stochastic ray frontier production model A possible model extension is to incorporate a technical efficiency effects model to allow estimation of the...