: (1) distribution expenses are large - they amount to over half of labor costs; (2) plants in the largest decile …, distribution costs as a share of sales declined by one third. We develop a model of heterogeneous manufacturing firms that rely on … share. In combination with the model, these trends suggest largescale decreases in both variable and fixed costs of …

developing countries across the world. We analyze the impact of this shift into services on countries' efficiency in collecting … the value-added tax (VAT). The analysis is based on two alternative measures of VAT efficiency: (1) the VAT C-efficiency … 2004-2016. We find that a higher share of services in aggregate value-added reduces the VAT efficiency, and that this …

potential gains-in terms of freeing up resources and delivering better health outcomes-from improving health spending efficiency …? How has efficiency evolved over the past decade? What can policymakers do to boost it? This paper estimates health … spending efficiency across countries using bias-corrected data envelopment analysis and finds sizable differences in efficiency …

Cost-efficiency, scale efficiency, and productivity change are estimated by data envelopment analysis; and cost-efficiency … is regressed on explanatory variables. No evidence is found for average productivity responding to deregulation over the …

This paper investigates the efficiency of domestic and foreign banks in the Central American region during 2002 … acquired by global banks in a wave of acquisitions during 2005-07 can keep up with the local institutions. The efficiency of …-specific characteristics are found to have a considerable influence on bank efficiency …

This paper studies the effect of public sector efficiency on firm productivity using data from more than 400,000 firms … significantly reduces the labor productivity of private sector firms. The results suggest that raising public sector efficiency … across Italy's provinces. Exploiting the large heterogeneity in the efficiency of the public sector across Italian provinces …

This study investigates the relationship between production efficiency in financial intermediation and financial system …-maximizing intermediaries operating in large systems are expected to have lower production costs and lower costs of risk absorption and …, and market concentration affect significantly the production efficiency of financial intermediaries …

economic growth and efficiency, using panel data for 40 countries which reformed their financial systems. Financial sector … reform is hypothesized to affect economic growth and efficiency through three main channels: the real interest rate … representing the interest cost of capital, the volume of intermediation, and financial sector efficiency. The results indicate that …

This note examines the efficiency gains that might result from market-based debt reduction and alternative uses of … government investment or consumption. Given considerable uncertainty about the efficiency returns of alternative uses of …

This paper deals with efficiency in the public sector. It argues that the habit of relating efficiency to public … could be used for several purposes including increasing public sector efficiency …