Abstracts : Policy Research working paper series - numbers 2857 - 2882

This paper contains abstracts of Policy Research Working Paper series, numbers 2857 - 2882Banks&Banking Reform,ICT Policy and Strategies,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Economics&Finance,Economic Theory&Research

A conditional full frontier approach for investigating the Averch-Johnson effect

This paper applies a probabilistic approach in order to develop conditional and unconditional Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) models for the measurement of sectors’ input oriented technical and scale efficiency levels for a sample of 23 Greek manufacturing sectors. In order to capture the Averch and Johnson effect (A-J effect), we measure sectors’ efficiency levels conditioned on the number of companies competing within the sectors. Particularly, various DEA models have been applied alongside with bootstrap techniques in order to determine the effect of competition conditions on sectors’ inefficiency levels. Additionally, this study illustrates how the recent developments in efficiency analysis and statistical inference can be applied when evaluating the effect of regulations in an industry. The results reveal that sectors with fewer numbers of companies appear to have greater scale and technical inefficiencies due to the existence of the A-J effect.Averch-Johnson effect; Industry regulations; Manufacturing sectors; Nonparametric analysis

The Internet and Economic Growth in Least Developed Countries

Internet, economic growth, developing countries

Technical efficiency in Botswana’s financial institutions: a DEA approach

This paper examines technical and pure technical efficiencies of ten major financial institutions in Botswana for each year during the period 2001-2006 using data envelopment analysis. In order to obtain more robust and reliable results, the sensitivity of our efficiency indices were put into test by choosing three alternative approaches in specifying the mix of inputs and outputs. The empirical results indicate that: (a) no matter which approach and year are taken into consideration, Baroda and FNB (which are both foreign banks) and BSB (which is a publicly owned institution) are consistently among the most efficient institutions and BDC, ABC and NDB are the least efficient ones; (b) the most efficient banks are either small or large institutions in terms of their asset sizes; (c) due to the small sample size, the evidence of a relationship between the age of institutions and their technical efficiencies remains inconclusive. One can conclude that financial institutions can further enhance efficiency by adopting self-service technologies such as telephone and internet banking which can substantially reduce their service delivery costs.Botswana, Technical efficiency, Data envelopment analysis, financial institutions.

Performance and strategy:simultaneous equations analysis of long-lived firms

A simultaneous equations model of performance, strategy and size is tested using fieldwork evidence on long-lived firms in Scotland. Estimation is by I3SLS, with correction for sample selection bias. The contributions of this paper are that it: (a) grounds estimation on fieldwork evidence; (b) calibrates performance and competitive strategy; (c) tests and models endogeneity; and (d) computes robust trade-off elasticities between firm size and performance. It shows how this trade-off provides the entrepreneur with two strong incentives: (i) to seek greater efficiency typically by an increase in the human capital of the ‘core’ workforce; (ii) to achieve higher levels of performance by adopting more diverse competitive strategies

Economic Evaluation of Agricultural Research in Australia and New Zealand - A workshop held in conjunction with the 40th annual conference of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society 11-16 February 1996, Melbourne, Australia

Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Productivity Measurement: Alternative Approaches and Estimates

This paper provides a review of conceptual and methodological issues in measuring productivity. Attention is given to the concept of productivity and the relationship between productivity and technological change. Different approaches to measuring productivity are surveyed and the results from a number of NZ productivity studies are summarised. The availability of appropriate input and output data is essential for the accurate measurement of productivity and therefore this paper also discusses some important data issues that influence productivity measurement.Productivity; Measurement Issues; New Zealand; Technological Change

A policy response to the e-commerce revolution: the case of betting taxation in the UK

Several environmental changes in the 1990s – including the introduction of a national lottery, the rise of Internet gambling, and the reduction of trade barriers within the EU – induced the UK government to initiate a large-scale review of betting duty. As a result of this review, the government recently announced a significant reduction in betting taxes. They also decided to replace the current general betting duty (GBD), levied as a proportion of betting stakes, with a gross profits tax (GPT), based on the net revenue of bookmakers. We examine the economic rationale behind these decisions and demonstrate how these tax changes have broad implications regarding optimal levels of taxation for other sources of government revenue