This work has been raised with the aim of analyzing the level of efficiency "benchmarking" and its explanatory factors of consulting audit firms in Spain. We have applied a semi-parametric model following the methodology of Simar and Wilson (2007). The main results show that five companies have...

The purpose of this paper is to compare the cost efficiency of private and public property insurance providers in Switzerland. The most commonly used measure for this kind of exercise is the Claims / Premium ratio. We argue that this measure may give strongly biased results. We develop a simple...

In this paper we briefly summarise the results of our studies of the property insurance market in 5 countries, Britain, Spain, France, Switzerland and Germany. We then draw conclusions, how the market for insurance against natural disasters (such as floods or subsidence) should be...

This paper presents the services trade restrictiveness indices (STRIs) for the regulated professions of legal and accounting services. The STRIs are composite indices taking values between zero and one, zero representing an open market and one a market completely closed to foreign services...

This paper presents the services trade restrictiveness indices (STRIs) for construction, architecture and engineering services. The STRIs are composite indices taking values between zero and one, zero representing an open market and one a market completely closed to foreign services providers....

This report presents the main findings and conclusions of the study conducted by the Institute of Applied Economic Research (Ipea), whose main goal is to portray the situa tion in the segment of projects engineering manly associated with Brazilian transportation infrastructure. This study is...

This study is to assess the needs and possibilities of fostering the engineering design firms in Brazil, more specifically those targeting the naval industry projects, and also offer a diagnosis to guide the formulation, implementation and evaluation of policy support to strengthen this segment...

The purpose of this paper is to propose a service development process that is adapted to manufacturing companies and to discuss its implication for companies with a focus on product development and product sales. This paper looks at new service development (NSD) literature and argues for design...

The dynamic rhythm of living in today's contemporary surroundings can not be considered without the use of personal and commercial vehicles, for transport of passengers and cargo. This means that every manufacturer in this segment, in their departments for development, find a way to increase...

I investigate the consequences for mutual funds' operational outcomes when fund families focus their efforts on their core competency, i.e. portfolio management, by outsourcing noncore activities to external providers. Specifically, I find that funds of families that outsource shareholder...