The neglected issue of using profit efficiency for the best-practice benchmarking of UK universities is explored to see whether this supports the policy stance of encouraging more specialized university production. The article also investigates whether nonparametric modelling with financial...

This article explores the relative efficiency of Northern Ireland hospitals, and in particular the efficiency of small hospitals relative to their large counterparts, employing a technique called data envelopment analysis. The empirical analysis revealed that larger hospitals displayed higher...

This study examines the relative performance of Japanese cooperative banks between 1998 and 2009, explicitly modelling non-performing loans as an undesirable output. Three key findings emerge. First, the sector is characterized by increasing returns to scale which supports the ongoing...