In this paper we analyze the levels of technical efficiency and productivity growth attained by Spanish insurance companies during a period of deregulation. We compute Malmquist productivity indexes using the estimates of parametric distance function for several specialized insurance branches....

The aim of this paper was to use a parametric stochastic frontier approach (coming from the economic literature) to explore the impact of the concept of activity (taken in a broad sense: i.e., including both professional and non-professional activities) on the constitution and the care of...

Monte-Carlo experimentation is a well-known approach to test the performance of alternative methodologies under different hypothesis. In the frontier analysis framework, whatever parametric or non-parametric methods tested, most experiments have been developed up to now assuming single output...

This study explicitly considers that education is a multi-input multi-output production process subject to inefficient behaviors that can be identified at student level. Therefore a distance function allows us to calculate different aspects of educational technology. The paper presents an...

In this paper we use data on five social inclusion indicators (poverty, inequality, unemployment, education and health) to assess and compare the performance of 27 European welfare states (EU27) in 2008. Aggregate measures of performance are obtained using index number methods similar to those...

The paper provides a perspective on the development of the Belgian disability insurance system. Using both survey and administrative data, it sketches a picture of the (changing) factors leading towards disability, as well as the outcomes in terms of program participation. The paper shows the...

Most work on tax competition argues that mobile factors tend to be undertaxed except if there is coordination of tax policies. Full coordination is not however always feasible, and as a consequence some measures of partial coordination have been proposed such as minimal witholding taxes on...

Longevity-adjusted growth rates are computed for Belgium over the period 1867-1997, by using a method based on contributions by Usher (1973a, 1980), Williamson (1984) and Miller (2000). Adjusted growth rates substantially differ from conventional figures, which may have tended to underestimate...