This paper examines the technical efficiency of U.S. Federal Reserve check processing offices over 1980-2003. We extend results from Park et al. (2000) and Daouia and Simar (2007) to develop an unconditional, hyperbolic, amp;#945;-quantile estimator of efficiency. Our new estimator is fully...

Advances in information-processing technology have significantly eroded the advantages of small scale and proximity to customers that traditionally enabled community banks and other small-scale lenders to thrive. Nonetheless, U.S. credit unions have experienced increasing membership and market...

This paper describes a software package for computing non-parametric efficiency estimates, making inference, and testing hypotheses in frontier models. Commands are provided for bootstrapping as well as computation of some new, robust estimators of efficiency, etc.

This paper analyses costs to workers arising from off-peak work schedules. A discrete model of joint travel mode/work-start time choice is estimated using survey data from Singapore. The model indicates that the cost of adjusting one's work-start time δ time units away from the peak starting...

Minnesota's combined tax and transfer systems exemplify means by which states can achieve welfare reform. Reduced complexity, lower administrative costs, and reduction of work disincentives created by AFDC, food stamps, and Medicaid are considered.

Partly in response to welfare reform, an increasing number of states have enacted refundable tax credits to assist low-income working families. These state credits are layered on top of the federal tax system, state welfare programs, and direct state subsidies for child care. Minnesota's...

Examines the pricing of usage in a government-provided facility in the presence of rent seeking over the distribution of the revenues raised. Distinguishes government prices and market prices in terms of the control over the revenues raised.

Nonparametric estimators are widely used to estimate the productive efficiency of firms and other organizations, but often without any attempt to make statistical inference. Recent work has provided statistical properties of these estimators as well as methods for making statistical inference,...