Efficiency Potential and Efficiency Variation in Norwegian Lower Secondary Schools

The paper performs an efficiency analysis of the lower secondary school sector in Norway. The efficiency potential is calculated to 14 percent based on a DEA analysis with grades in core subjects (adjusted for student characteristics and family background) as outputs. The analysis of the determinants of efficiency indicates that a high level of municipal revenue, a high degree of party fragmentation, and a high share of socialists in the local council are associated with low educational efficiency. The negative effects of the share of socialists and party fragmentation seem to reflect both higher resource use and lower student performance.educational efficiency, DEA analysis, determinants of efficiency, political and budgetary institutions

How a regulatory capital requirement affects banks' productivity: an application to emerging economies

© 2015, Springer Science+Business Media New York. This paper presents a novel approach to measure efficiency and productivity decomposition in the banking systems of emerging economies with a special focus on the role of equity capital. We model the requirement to hold levels of a fixed input, i.e. equity, above the long run equilibrium level or, alternatively, to achieve a target equity-asset ratio. To capture the effect of this under-leveraging, we allow the banking system to operate in an uneconomic region of the technology. Productivity decomposition is developed to include exogenous factors such as policy constraints. We use a panel data set of banks in emerging economies during the financial upheaval period of 2005–2008 to analyse these ideas. Results indicate the importance of the capital constraint in the decomposition of productivity

On the mathematical foundations of political economy

Political economy views economic issues through the lens of political organisation. In today's world, it must focus on the roles of markets and of democracy, two concepts which are driving revolutionary changes in the political organisation of both Europe and Asia. There are two main paradigms for the analysis of markets and democracy, both of which have been mathematically advanced over a number of years: the general equilibrium theory of markets, and social choice theory, which examines practical aspects of democracy.' While it is true that political economy has made some limited use of the latter in order to examine political-economic issues of democracy, it has made little use of the former, the theory of market behaviour.general equilibrium; Welfare Theorems; welfare; political economy; mixed economies; political economy agenda; social choice theory; mathematical modelling

Data Envelopment Analysis, Endogeneity and the Quality Frontier for Public Services

Applying Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to real-world public policy issues can raise many interesting complications beyond those considered in standard models of DEA. One of these complications arises if the funding levels of public service providers, and their ability to attract and retain clients and able staff, depend upon the quality of the output which they produce. This dependency introduces additional inter-relationships between inputs and outputs beyond the uni-directional Production Possibility Frontier (PPF) relationship considered by standard DEA models. The paper therefore analyses the multiplier effects which can be generated by these additional relationships, in which key resource inputs become endogenous variables subject to the external environmental variables which the public service provider faces across these different relationships. The magnitude of these multiplier effects can be captured by focusing DEA on the estimation of an Achievement Possibility Frontier, which reveals the wider set of opportunities which are available to a public service provider to improve its own output quality than that revealed by the estimation of the PPF associated with standard models of DEA. In doing so, the paper enables DEA to be still applied, but in modified form, to the estimation of the scope for improved output of any given public service provider in the presence of such resource endogeneity

On competition and school efficiency

Education

USING DEA AND VEA TO EVALUATE QUALITY OF LIFE IN THE MID-ATLANTIC STATES

In this study we use data envelopment analysis (DEA), and an extension of DEA called value efficiency analysis (VEA), to explore the production of quality of life within counties in the mid-Atlantic region and the extent to which production frontiers and efficiency differ between rural and urban counties. These methods allow us to identify counties that are inefficient in their quality of life production, and to rank those counties according to their distance from a performance standard established by other observed counties (using DEA), or by a single unit designated as most preferred (using VEA) .International Development,

Analysing the Research and Teaching Quality Achievement Frontier

The paper analyses the nature of the achievement possibility frontier between research and teaching quality in higher education under a system of quality evaluation by reference to discrete quality grades. It finds several important reasons why the associated feasible set is likely to be non-convex, and hence where the assumptions of the widely used nonparametric frontier performance analysis technique of Data Envelopment Analysis are no longer valid. The paper therefore investigates the use of the alternative Free Disposal Hull technique, and compares the results of deploying these techniques to the performance evaluation of UK Departments of Economics.Research and teaching quality, Higher education, Departments of Economics, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), Free Disposal Hull

The Thrift Industry and the Community Reinvestment Act: Assessing the Cost of Social Responsibility

A stochastic frontier cost function indicates that the annual cost of complying with the anti-redlining Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) is $171,000 per thrift institution, roughly 2.3 percent of variable costs. But compliance cost is significantly less than the estimated 21 percent cost inefficiency. Based on published estimates of the incremental number of mortgage loans induced by CRA, the marginal cost is$38,000 per loan. The regulations whose compliance cost is estimated apply to about 80 percent of all U.S. banks.

Accelerating innovation with prize rewards: History and typology of technology prizes and a new contest design for innovation in African agriculture

"This paper describes how governments and philanthropic donors could drive innovation through a new kind of technology contest. We begin by reviewing the history of technology prizes, which operate alongside private intellectual property rights and public R&D to accelerate and guide productivity growth towards otherwise-neglected social goals. Proportional “prize rewards” would modify the traditional winner-take-all approach, by dividing available funds among multiple winners in proportion to measured achievement. This approach would provide a royalty-like payment for incremental success. The paper provides concludes with a specific example for how such prizes could be implemented to reward and help scale up successful innovations in African agriculture, through payments to innovators in proportion to the value created by their technologies after adoption. " from authors' abstractProductivity growth, Technology adoption, intellectual property, Agricultural R&D, Innovation,

Using DEA and VEA to Evaluate Quality of Life in the Mid-Atlantic States

In this study we use data envelopment analysis (DEA) and an extension of DEA called value efficiency analysis (VEA) to explore the “"production”" of quality of life within counties in the mid-Atlantic region and the extent to which production frontiers and efficiency differ between rural and urban counties. These methods allow us to identify counties that are inefficient in their quality of life production, and to rank (using DEA) those counties according to their distance from a performance standard established by other observed counties(using VEA), or by a single unit designated as "“most preferred"(using VEA).”data envelopment analysis, value efficiency analysis, quality of life, Community/Rural/Urban Development,