Is electricity more important than natural gas? Partial liberalization of the Western European energy markets

The European Union has introduced directives that aim to liberalize and integrate electricity and gas markets in Western Europe. While progress has been made, particularly in electricity markets, there have been setbacks: for example, because of concerns about national interests and security of supply. Thus it is possible that only part of the energy industry in Western Europe will be liberalized. We use a numerical model to assess what types of liberalization – electricity vs. natural gas; domestic markets vs. international trade – are most influential in decreasing prices and increasing welfare in Western Europe. We find that a partial liberalization of electricity markets has greater quantity and welfare effects than a partial liberalization of gas markets, and that liberalizations of domestic energy markets have (overall) greater effects than liberalizations of trade in energy between Western European countries. Finally, the shortrun effects primarily parallel the long-run effects, though they are significantly smaller

Does increased extraction of natural gas reduce carbon emissions?

Without an international climate agreement, extraction of more natural gas could reduce emissions of CO2 as more “clean” natural gas may drive out “dirty” coal and oil. Using a computable equilibrium model for the Western European electricity and natural gas markets, we examine whether increased extraction of natural gas in Norway reduces global emissions of CO2. We find that both in the short run and in the long run total emissions are reduced if the additional quantity of natural gas is used in gas power production in Norway. If instead the additional quantity is exported directly, total emissions increase both in the short run and in the long run. However, if modest CO2-taxes are imposed, increased extraction of natural gas will reduce CO2 emissions also when the additional natural gas is exported directed

Efficiency and productivity of Norwegian tax offices

The performance of local tax offices of Norway is studied over a three year period applying Data Envelopment Efficiency analysis and a Malmquist productivity index. The estimates are biascorrected using a bootstrap approach recently developed for DEA models. The results show that bias correction and the construction of confidence intervals give a quite different picture than without bootstrapping. A set of best practice offices is identified for future work on finding explanations for good performance. The productivity development of individual offices is classified into the four categories efficient cost increase, efficient cost savings, inefficient cost savings and inefficient cost increase

Monte Carlo simulations of DEA efficiency measures and hypothesis tests

The statistical properties of the efficiency estimators based on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) are largely unknown. Recent work by Simar et al. and Banker has shown the consistency of the DEA estimators under specific assumptions, and Banker proposes asymptotic tests of whether two subsamples have the same efficiency distribution. There are difficulties arising from bias in small samples and lack of independence in nested models. This paper suggest no new tests, but presents results on bias in simulations of nested small sample DEA models, and examines the approximating powers of suggested tests under various specifications of scale and omitted variables

Productivity development of Norwegian institutions of higher education 2004 - 2013

Studies of productivity growth of institutions of higher education is of interest for two main reasons; education is an important factor for productivity growth of the economy, and in countries where higher education is funded by the public sector accountability of resource use is of key interest. Educational services consist of teaching, research and the "third mission" of dissemination of knowledge to the society at large. A bootstrapped Malmquist productivity change index is used to calculate productivity development for Norwegian institutions of higher education over the 10 year period 2004-2013. The confidence intervals from bootstrapping allow part of the uncertainty of point estimates stemming from sample variation to be revealed. The main result is that the majority of institutions have had a positive productivity growth over the total period. However, when comparing with growth in labour input the impact on productivity vary a lot

Farrell revisited: Visualising the DEA production frontier

The contributions of the paper are threefold: i) compare with mathematical rigour the Charnes, Cooper, and Rhodes DEA model and the Farrell model exhibiting constant returns to scale, ii) reinterpret the contribution of Farrell and Fieldhouse that extended the analysis to variables returns to scale and establish the connection with the approach in Banker, Charnes and Cooper, iii) provide graphical visualisation of properties of the frontier function. Both papers by Farrell emphasised the importance of graphical visualisation of non-parametric frontier functions, but, to our knowledge, this is seldom followed up in the literature. We use a graphical package (EffiVision) with a numerical representation of the frontier functions, representing the contemporary development of visualisation. By making suitable cuts through the DEA frontier in multidimensional space, various graphical representations of features of economic interest can be done. Development of ray average cost function and scale elasticity are novel illustrations

Productivity of tax offices in Norway

The performance of local tax offices of Norway is studied over a three-year period using Data Envelopment Efficiency analysis and calculating Malmquist productivity indices. One input, labour, is used, and six output categories of the main service activities carried out by tax offices are specified. A bootstrap approach recently developed for DEA models is applied to establish confidence intervals for the individual indices enabling an identification of units that have either significant productivity decline or growth, or no change. A specially developed graphic display gives a visual test and grouping into the three possible categories. Looking at change in labour use and productivity change together the productivity development of individual offices is classified into the four categories efficient labour increase, efficient labour savings, inefficient labour savings and inefficient labour increase

Action to protect the independence and integrity of global health research

Storeng KT, Abimbola S, Balabanova D, et al. Action to protect the independence and integrity of global health research. BMJ GLOBAL HEALTH. 2019;4(3): e001746