Benchmarking the Health Sector in Germany – An Application of Data Envelopment Analysis

At present, a first round of hospital benchmarking as required by German law on health care reform takes place. After extensive discussions between hospitals and insurance companies, which are jointly responsible to deliver benchmarking results, a method with some peculiar characteristics was chosen. In this paper it is argued that the deficiencies of said method could be overcome by using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The reasons that make DEA an advisable tool for policy decisions within the context of relative performance evaluation in the health care sector are discussed. In order to illustrate the potential of nonparametric frontier estimation for hospital benchmarking in Germany, a comparison of hospitals, which provide the same basic clinical care, is carried out. Controlling for differences in the case mix and for possible heterogeneity of the services which hospitals provide, substantial productivity differences can be detected. Beyond simply identifying inefficient providers DEA leads to additional insight about the reasons of inefficiency and to useful management implications.Health care reform benchmarking relative performance evaluation Data Envelopment Analysis

A Super Efficiency Model for Product Evaluation

This study applies a Super Efficiency Data Envelopment Analysis model to evaluate the efficiency of cars sold on the German market. Efficiency is conceptualized from a customers' perspective as a ratio of outputs that customers obtain from a product relative to inputs that customers have to invest. The output side is modeled as a set of customer-relevant parameters such as performance attributes but also nonfunctional benefits and brand strength. More than 60% of the cars are efficient but the analysis shows marked differences regarding their degree of Super Efficiency. Super Efficiency indicates the extent to which the efficient products exceed the efficient frontier formed by other efficient units. Based on the parameter weights, segments of cars with a particular mix of characteristics can be identified; cars with a comparative advantage relative to their competitors who provide the same mix are characterized as the reference points within a given segment.Customer Value, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), Marketing Efficiency, Product Marketing, Super Efficiency Model

Estimation of labour supply functions using panel data: a survey

This survey aims at providing the reader with a thread through the literature on the topic of panel econometrics of labour supply, reporting also on the evaluation of the data used in these studies, and summarizing their substantive results. It documents the present trend away from models that take advantage of panel data almost exclusively in order to control for unobserved heterogeneity, towards fully dynamic models where wages become endogenous and consequently the concept of wage elasticity loses much of its appeal. --

STRUCTURING PRODUCT-MARKETS: AN APPROACH BASED ON CUSTOMER VALUE

We offer an efficiency-based approach to derive market partitions and respective benchmarks using Data Envelopment Analysis. Product efficiency is measured as an output to input value from the customer’s perspective. Products offering a maximum customer value relative to alternatives represent benchmarks for different sub-markets. The framework is applied to data on compact cars. relevant product segments.Customer Value, Product-Market Structuring, Market Partitioning, Data Envelopment Analysis, Product Efficiency, Frontier Functions

‘Let him thus be a Hippolytus’ (Perist. 11.87) : horror and rhetoric in Prudentius’ Peristephanon 11

The characterization of Hippolytus, the main protagonist of Prudentius’ Peristephanon 11, draws heavily on earlier literary traditions, most importantly Seneca’s Phaedra. Nevertheless, the Hippolytus-imagery is carefully adapted in order to develop a rhetoric of bodily fragmentation and reunion. This discourse makes the minds of the readers receptive for a proper veneration of the saint’s relics

Let's go West!: Do East Germans commute for wages, jobs or skills?

Using data from the longitudinal Labor Market Monitor for the New German States we provide a portrait of East-West commuters in the first year after unification and evaluate various hypotheses to explain the phenomenon. Commuters may be driven by the search for higher wages in the west or by unemployment in the east. Comparing commuters and other job starters in the east with respect to their previous labor force status we find the unemployed and those fearing job loss in the future to be less likely to hold jobs in the west. While many commuters realize significant wage gains some do not. We examine whether these commuters are likely to be acquiring additional human capital through employer provided training. While the incidence and duration of training is high among commuters, wage gains for those without training are lower. This leaves the wage differential hypothesis as the most likely explanation for the commuting phenomenon. --