The paper analyzes the outsourcing efficiency related to the operation of power plants, considering how power generation efficiency is affected by outsourced operators’ internal communication cost, primary energy source, and the differences in the type of generation, i.e., distributed or...

This study examines the technical inefficiency of small and medium Japanese manufacturing firms by using panel data from the Basic Survey on Small and Medium Enterprises (2009-2018). We estimate the stochastic frontier production function with four production factors (regular workers,...

Insurance refers as a contract in which the insured transfers risk of potential loss to the insurer who promises to compensate the former upon suffering loss. The promise is called the insurer and the promise is called the insured. Insurance premium is the monetary consideration paid by the...

The paper uses plant-level data for 2008-2015 to examine the impact of the adoption of ISO 14000 on the energy intensity of Indian manufacturing plants. The propensity score matching difference-in-difference (PSM-DID) estimator is used for assessing the effect. The results show that the adoption...

Efficiency has long been an issue of concern in the electricity sector. Most existing studies relate technical efficiency in the electricity sector to policy or environmental factors. The impact of firm operation factors has rarely been discussed. We estimate Stochastic Frontier models using...

Productivity and efficiency analyses have been indispensable tools for evaluating firms’ performance in the banking sector. In this context, the use of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) has been recently proposed in order to obtain a globally flexible functional form which is capable of...

This work proposes a methodology to find appropriate weights to be assigned to attributes to evaluate bids for government procurements. The new methodology complies with the European Union procurement directives and provides transparency about the weights’ tradeoffs for attributes in...