When benchmarking production units by non-parametric methods like data envelopment analysis (DEA), an assumption has to be made about the returns to scale of the underlying technology. Moreover, it is often also relevant to compare the frontiers across samples of producers. Until now, no exact...

We derive and empirically apply an input-oriented distance function based on the stochastic ray production function suggested by L¨othgren (1997, 2000). We show that the derived ray-based input distance function is suitable for modeling production technologies based on logarithmic functional...