Plural Form and Franchise Chains Efficency: A Dea Meta-Frontier Approach applied to French Chains

This paper deals with the performance of franchise chains related to their percentage of company-owned outlets (PCO). This research uses a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to assess franchise chains’ efficiency, and a meta-frontier approach to analyze chains’ efficiency between and across sectors. The sample includes 43 chains of the service and retail sectors, located in the French market. Data are available over the 2005-2007 period allowing a longitudinal analysis. The main findings show that the meta-frontier is built up on retail chains rather than on service chains, and that there is a relationship between the PCO and the chain efficiency. Finally, there is no significant difference between the observed PCOs and the optimal PCOs which means that franchisors in our sample have already reached a PCO that is close to the PCO that optimizes the chain efficiency.Creation-Date: 2012-02Franchising, Plural Form, Percentage of company-owned outlets (PCO), Efficiency, Data Envelopment Analysis, Meta Frontier

Farmer Participation in Supermarket Channels, Production Technology and Technical Efficiency: The Case of Vegetables in Kenya

Supermarkets are currently gaining ground in the agri-food systems of many developing countries. While recent research has analyzed income effects in the small farm sector, impacts on farming efficiency have hardly been studied. Productivity effects in previous studies are also estimated with respect to different frontiers. Using a survey of Kenyan vegetable growers and a meta-frontier approach, we control for self-selection using propensity score matching and show that participation in supermarket channels increases farm productivity by 35-38%. Effects on technical efficiency are, however, insignificant. Supermarket expansion therefore presents opportunities for realizing agricultural growth, thus enhancing poverty alleviation and rural development.supermarkets, meta-frontier, productivity, meta-technology ratio, sample selection, Kenya, Agribusiness, Community/Rural/Urban Development, International Development, Production Economics, Productivity Analysis,

Comparing Firm Performance Using Transitive Productivity Index Numbers in a Meta-frontier Framework

The meta-frontier framework has been used extensively for evaluating the technical efficiency of heterogeneous production units that can be classified into different groups. This paper shows how the framework can also be used to make total factor productivity (TFP) comparisons within and across groups. The paper develops a new measure of the distance between a group frontier and the meta-frontier (the so-called ‘technology gap’). It then shows how a spatially- and temporally-transitive TFP index can be decomposed into measures of global technical change (measuring movements in the metafrontier), local technical change (measuring movements in the group frontiers) and efficiency change (measuring movements towards or around the group frontiers). To illustrate the methodology, the paper examines the productive performance of road authorities responsible for maintaining interstate highways in the US state of Virginia.

Analysis of Technical Efficiency and Varietal Differences in Pistachio Production in Iran Using a Meta-Frontier Analysis

This paper reports on an analysis of technical efficiency and varietal differences in pistachio production in Iran. A random sample of 475 farmers was selected from the province of Kerman in 2003 and 2004. In this study, farmers are classified into three groups according to the variety of tree they planted. The three main varieties of pistachio trees planted are Kalleh- Ghuchi, Fandoghi and Akbari. The technical efficiency indices are computed using three approaches. First, a standard stochastic production frontier was employed using pooled data. Secondly, stochastic frontier production functions were estimated for each variety (separately). Lastly, the meta-frontier approach was used because production varieties and technologies are expected to differ between the three varieties. Use of this method enabled technical efficiency scores to be corrected by the coefficient of the variety-technology gap ratio (VTGR). Estimates of the frontier were obtained assuming a translog functional form. Results indicate that the mean values of technical efficiency in 2003 and 2004 for the pooled frontier, variety group frontiers and meta-frontier across all data are 54 per cent, 55 per cent and 62 per cent, respectively. The mean value of VTGR in 2003 and 2004 varies from 0.58 for the Kalleh-Ghuchi variety to 0.68 for the Fandoghi variety. These results show the importance of taking into account the differences in frontiers imposed by different tree varieties.pistachio, stochastic meta-frontier, production function, technical efficiency, Iranian agriculture, Productivity Analysis, C21, Q12, Q16, Q55, R58,

Measuring productivity differentials – An application to milk production in Nordic countries

The aim of this paper is to analyse the regional productivity differentials on dairy farms in Denmark, Finland and Sweden. Several methods have been suggested for analysing productivity differentials in agriculture between groups of farms or countries. Hayami [5] and Hayami and Ruttan [7] suggested the meta-production function approach. This idea has been further developed by Lau and Yotopoulos [9] and Fulginity and Perrin [13]. Battese and Rao [2] suggested the meta-frontier analysis for these comparisons. One of the advantages of meta-frontiers with respect to metaproduction functions is that they are able to separate technological differences from the differences in technical efficiency. Battese et al. [5] and O’Donnell et al. [16] have extended this idea and developed both parametric and nonparametric approaches. In this paper, we extend the metafrontier analysis to the concave nonparametric least squares estimation of the production function suggested by Kuosmanen [18,19]. In addition, we compare the results with the approach where the estimation of meta-frontier can be avoided. The reference can also be the maximum output providing technology that is the one that yields the maximum estimated output, given inputs [21]. In this case the estimation can be based either on average or frontier production functions. The farm level data is obtained from the EU’s Farm Accountancy Data Network data set for Denmark, Finland and Sweden. They cover 954 dairy farms in 2003. The results suggest that different method provide slightly different results but in all approaches productivity differentials are considerable in favour of Danish farms. In addition, the Danish technology is not only dominating at the mean but also at most of the data points.productivity, technical efficiency, meta-frontier, Productivity Analysis,

Do Islamic and conventional banks have the same technology?

Is there a technology gap between Islamic and conventional banks? Do Islamic and conventional banks have different cost efficiency levels? We show that conventional and Islamic banks have similar mean (aggregate) cost efficiency levels in the MENA area and there is no technology gap between the two types of banks. At the country level, Islamic banks are more cost efficient than conventional banks in Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey and United Arab Emirates, and less efficient in Bangladesh, Kuwait, Malaysia and Tunisia. We analyse a very large sample of banks in twelve MENA and South East Asian countries between 2000 and 2006 and we use the meta-frontier approach to account for the sample heterogeneity

Paradoxes of Traffic Flow and Economics of Congestion Pricing

This paper utilizes a unique county-level dataset to examine technical efficiency and technology gap in China’s agriculture. We classify the counties into four regions with distinctive levels of economic development, and hence production technologies. A meta-frontier analysis is applied to the counties. We find that although the eastern counties have the highest efficiency scores with respect to the regional frontier but the northeastern region leads in terms of agricultural production technology nationwide. Meanwhile, the mean efficiency of the northeastern counties is particularly low, suggesting technology and knowledge diffusion within region might help to improve production efficiency and thus output.China’s grain production; County-level; Metafrontier; Stochastic production frontier; Technical efficiency

Is there a single frontier in a single European banking market?

This paper attempts to estimate comparable efficiency scores for European banks operating in the Single Market in the EU. Using a data set of more than 5000 large commercial banks from all major European banking markets over the period 1993-2004, the application of meta-frontiers enables us to assess the existence of a single and integrated European banking market. We find evidence in favor of a single European banking market characterized by cost and profit meta-frontiers. However, compared to the meta-frontier estimations, pooled frontier estimations tend to underestimate efficiency levels and correlate poorly with country-specific frontier efficiency ranks. JEL Classification: G21, L11, L22, L23banking, meta-frontiers, stochastic frontiers, technology gap ratios, X-efficiency

Efficiency and productivity change in Islamic and conventional banks: Evidence from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries

We examine efficiency in Islamic and conventional banks in the GCC region during 2006-2012 using DEA and a meta-frontier approach. We find no significant difference between Islamic and conventional banks in terms of average gross efficiency. But net efficiency is significantly higher for conventional than Islamic banks suggesting superior performance in terms of technical efficiency (managerial competence and/or scale); type efficiency is higher for Islamic than conventional banks. Thus the Islamic banking business model leads to greater efficiency in the GCC over this period. A meta-frontier Malmquist productivity analysis of efficiency and productivity over time suggests that the financial crisis has been more pronounced in the conventional banking sector. The gap between the group and meta-frontiers widened in the wake of the crisis, but there are signs that this is now narrowing