Decomposition of the efficiency of the Chinese state-owned commercial banks at the provincial level

This study adopts a bank production function approach to the measurement of banking efficiency at the provincial level in the Chinese state-owned commercial banking sector from 1998 to 2003. Applying Data Envelopment Analysis and efficiency decomposition analysis, this paper has revealed a significant level of pure technical input inefficiency and, to a lesser extent, scale inefficiency across the provincial branches of all the banking groups. The study has also uncovered the extent of inefficiency in individual banking inputs and provincial branches. Finally, the provincial-level efficiency is further decomposed into within-banking-group and between-banking-group effects

MEASURING THE IMPACT OF ETHIOPIA'S NEW EXTENSION PROGRAM ON THE PRODUCTIVE EFFICIENCY OF FARMERS

This paper employed a robust stochastic efficiency decomposition technique that accounts for scale effects to derive the technical, allocative, and overall productive efficiency of two samples of farmers, participants and non-participants in the New Extension Program (NEP), in two agro-climatic zones in eastern Ethiopia. Using data for the 2001/2002 agricultural year, we find that both groups of farmers in the two zones have considerable overall productive inefficiencies. In the wet highlands, although the participants in NEP used a superior technology and have higher technical efficiencies, their allocative efficiencies turned out to be lower than the non-participant farmers, relative to their respective technologies. However, both groups exhibit similar productive efficiencies. In the dry lands, apart from using homogeneous production technologies, the two groups do not have significantly different technical and allocative efficiencies and that they have similar productive efficiencies. Therefore, we find no empirical evidence of a positive impact of NEP on overall productive efficiency in both agro-climatic zones. An investigation of the influence of several socio-economic and institutional factors revealed that education, credit, previous participation in extension programs, off-farm income and the share of the leading cropping system have a positive impact on efficiency.Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

HERD SIZE AND EFFICIENCY ON MIXED CROP AND LIVESTOCK FARMS: CASE STUDIES OF CHIWESHE AND GOKWE, ZIMBABWE

This study is based on two 1991 sample surveys, each of ninety farms, in the predominantly arable region of Chiweshe and in the low rainfall area of Gokwe, where animals are more important. The two samples are reasonably representative of the range of conditions found in the communal areas in Zimbabwe. Programming techniques are used to determine the efficiency levels of the farms in each region. The results show that efficiency is positively related to the numbers of both cows and oxen, with only a few farms in Gokwe possibly having too many animals. Farms in Gokwe are on average about two thirds as efficient as those in Chiweshe, which is a measure of the effects of the poorer climate and soils. Non-farm income is also lower, due to lesser opportunities in the more remote region. In both regions, the majority of farms are too small and the estimates suggest that increasing farm size could almost double productivity.Farm Management, Livestock Production/Industries,

Disentangling the European airlines efficiency puzzle: a network data envelopment analysis approach

© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. In recent years the European airline industry has undergone critical restructuring. It has evolved from a highly regulated market predominantly operated by national airlines to a dynamic, liberalized industry where airline firms compete freely on prices, routes, and frequencies. Although several studies have analyzed performance issues for European airlines using a variety of efficiency measurement methods, virtually none of them has considered two-stage alternatives - not only in this particular European context but in the airline industry in general. We extend the aims of previous contributions by considering a network Data Envelopment Analysis (network DEA) approach which comprises two sub-technologies that can share part of the inputs. Results show that, in general, most of the inefficiencies are generated in the first stage of the analysis. However, when considering different types of carriers several differences emerge - most of the low-cost carriers' inefficiencies are confined to the first stage. Results also show a dynamic component, since performance differed across types of airlines during the decade 2000-2010

Review of solar fuel-producing quantum conversion processes

The status and potential of fuel-producing solar photochemical processes are discussed. Research focused on splitting water to produce dihydrogen and is at a relatively early stage of development. Current emphasis is primarily directed toward understanding the basic chemistry underlying such quantum conversion processes. Theoretical analyses by various investigators predict a limiting thermodynamic efficiency of 31% for devices with a single photosystem operating with unfocused sunlight at 300 K. When non-idealities are included, it appears unlikely that actual devices will have efficiencies greater than 12 to 15%. Observed efficiencies are well below theoretical limits. Cyclic homogeneous photochemical processes for splitting water have efficiencies considerably less than 1%. Efficiency can be significantly increased by addition of a sacrificial reagent; however, such systems are no longer cyclic and it is doubtful that they would be economical on a commercial scale. The observed efficiencies for photoelectrochemical processes are also low but such systems appear more promising than homogeneous photochemical systems. Operating and systems options, including operation at elevated temperature and hybrid and coupled quantum-thermal conversion processes, are also considered

Solar photochemical process engineering for production of fuels and chemicals

The engineering costs and performance of a nominal 25,000 scmd (883,000 scfd) photochemical plant to produce dihydrogen from water were studied. Two systems were considered, one based on flat-plate collector/reactors and the other on linear parabolic troughs. Engineering subsystems were specified including the collector/reactor, support hardware, field transport piping, gas compression equipment, and balance-of-plant (BOP) items. Overall plant efficiencies of 10.3 and 11.6% are estimated for the flat-plate and trough systems, respectively, based on assumed solar photochemical efficiencies of 12.9 and 14.6%. Because of the opposing effects of concentration ratio and operating temperature on efficiency, it was concluded that reactor cooling would be necessary with the trough system. Both active and passive cooling methods were considered. Capital costs and energy costs, for both concentrating and non-concentrating systems, were determined and their sensitivity to efficiency and economic parameters were analyzed. The overall plant efficiency is the single most important factor in determining the cost of the fuel

Farm Technical Efficiency and Extension

This paper presents a methodology for estimating technical efficiency levels for individual farms using both a fixed effects panel model and a stochastic production frontier approach. It tests whether the estimated technical efficiency levels are associated with measures of contact with the advisory service. The approach is applied to a panel of 307 farms drawn from the Irish National Farm Survey over the period 1984 to 1994. The results show evidence that extension contact has had a positive impact on agricultural output.

Technical Efficiency of Freshwater Aquaculture and its Determinants in Tripura, India

Freshwater aquaculture is an important and promising sector of the economy of Tripura State. The biophysical potential for growth in freshwater aquaculture in the state is still far from exhaustion and a faster development is required to meet the growth in demand for fish. This paper has assessed the level of technical efficiency and its determinants of small-scale fish production in the West Tripura district of the state of Tripura, India. The study is based on the cross-sectional primary data collected from 101 fish farmers through a multi-stage random sampling method. The paper has employed stochastic production frontier approach, and has followed both one-stage and two-stage procedures to analyze the determinants of TE. The TE ranges between 0.21 and 0.96 with mean of 0.66 and median of 0.71. The study has revealed the Cobb-Douglas form of stochastic frontier production function is more dependable than that of translog form under the farming conditions in the West Tripura district of Tripura state. One-stage procedure with technical inefficiency model gives reliable estimates of coefficients of stochastic frontier production function than that of two-stage procedure. Seed quality has been found as an important determinant of TE. The study has suggested that the state government needs to play a role to ascertain the supply of quality fish fingerlings at adequate time and quantity to the farmers in the study area.Agricultural and Food Policy,

A Dynamic Approach to Estimate the Efficiency of U.S. Electric Utilities

The static production efficiency model and the dynamic duality model of intertemporal decision making using a parametric approach have been continuously developed but in separate direction. The parametric approach takes statistical noise into account, which consequently provides accurate measures in a stochastic environment. In this study the static shadow cost approach and the dynamic duality model of intertemporal decision making are integrated to formulate theoretical and econometric models of dynamic efficiency with intertemporal cost minimizing firm behavior. The dynamic efficiency model is a dynamic measure of firms’ inefficiency and it accounts for allocative and technical inefficiencies of net investment and of variable inputs. The dynamic efficiency model is implemented by using the Generalized Method of Moment (GMM) estimation and empirically applied into a panel data set of 72 U.S. major investor-owned electric utilities using fossil-fuel fired steam electric power generation during the time period of 1986 to 1999. The major results of this study are that most electric utilities in this study underutilized fuel relative to the aggregated labor and maintenance input and they overutilized capital in production. The estimates of the input price elasticities present the substitution possibilities among the inputs. Finally, the results suggest evidence of increasing returns to scale in the production of the electricity industryEfficiency, GMM estimation, shadow cost approach, dynamic duality, deregulation, electricity

Performance and Congestion Analysis of the Portuguese Hospital Services

The health care services have been characterised by a growing demand by the citizens leading to the need of more and more resources. Population aging, new pathologies and drugs as well as new treatments are some of the major factors for this. However, in hospitals, for example, consumption of a large number of inputs frequently has not corresponded to the production of the same or more proportion of outputs. Sometimes, the outputs even decline with the increase of inputs due to the influence of the congestion effect on efficiency. The heavy burden of the health sector on the state budget brings about the interest of research over its efficiency. This paper aims to assess the performance of the Portuguese hospitals and particularly the contribution of the congestion effect. We use the non-parametric technique of data envelopment analysis (DEA) for this purpose and a double-bootstrap procedure to take into account the influence of operational environment on efficiency. Afterwards, by comparing three different approaches we determine the importance of congestion in efficiency measurement and discuss its computation methodologically. The results suggest significant levels of inefficiency in 68 major Portuguese hospitals for the year 2005 and more than half of them were found to be congested.Hospitals; congestion; efficiency; DEA; Portugal