Allocative efficiency measurement revisited--Do we really need input prices?

The traditional approach to measuring allocative efficiency exploits input prices, which are rarely known at the firm level. This paper proves allocative efficiency can be measured as a profit-oriented distance to the frontier in a profit-technical efficiency space. This new approach does not require information on input prices. To validate the new approach, we perform a Monte-Carlo experiment providing evidence that the estimates of allocative efficiency employing the new and the traditional approach are highly correlated. Finally, as an illustration, we apply the new approach to a sample of about 900 enterprises from the chemical manufacturing industry in Germany.