Since Akerlof’s theory of lemons, economists have viewed quality uncertainty as an informational advantage for sellers. Drawing on frontier techniques, we propose in this paper a simple method for measuring inefficiency of both sellers and buyers in markets for goods with different levels of...

Livestock supply must challenge the growth of final demand in the developing countries. This challenge has to take into account its ecological effects since the dairy and livestock sectors are clearly pointed out as human activities which contribute significantly to environmental deterioration....

This study estimates productivity gains and their distribution among inputs and outputs for American industries over the period 1987-2011 using the traditional surplus accounting method. Total Factor Productivity (TFP) change is traditionally defined as the growth rate of output minus the growth...

Various methodological improvements in production function modelling allow the integration of undesirable outputs, the distinction between stakeholders? objective-function and the sectoral aggregation of individual technologies. This paper gathers these concepts in order to assess the...

As changes in the US health care system continue to evolve and change, maintaining the financial viability of hospitals is crucial to the system’s operation. Two lines of inquiry have been pursued in describing factors affecting financial viability. The first line of inquiry relates to the...

In this paper we extend the taxonomy on inner and outer approximations to a technology by assuming that price data are not available. Mimicking Varian [Econometrica, 52(3) (1984) 579] we introduce a Weak Axiom of Shadow Profit Maximization (WASPM) to test if observed production plans are...

Authors of past studies focusing on returns to scale in hospitals proffered mixed results. These seemingly contradictory findings have probably arisen due to different methodological approaches (parametric or non parametric), different aggregation levels of analysis (hospital/department/units),...