We propose a set of consistency conditions that frontier efficiency measures should meet to be most useful for regulatory analysis or other purposes. The efficiency estimates should be consistent in their efficiency levels, rankings, and identification of best and worst firms, consistent over...

A comparison of alternative methods for estimating inefficiency and productivity growth in banking, showing that inefficiencies are sufficiently large to dominate scale economies and that measured technological progress has been small, or even negative, as a result of institutional events that...