A new decomposition of the Malmquist productivity index is proposed to account for changes in plant capacity utilization. Using a primal, non-parametric specification of technology, the Malmquist index is decomposed into technical efficiency change, variations in plant capacity utilization and...

This paper explores a selection of recently proposed bootstrapping techniques to estimate non-parametric convex (DEA) cost frontiers and efficiency scores for transit firms. Using a sample of Norwegian bus operators, the key results can be summarized as follows: (i) the bias implied by...

Starting from existing static decompositions of overall economic efficiency on non-parametric production and cost frontiers, this paper proposes more comprehensive decompositions including several cost-based notions of capacity utilisation. Furthermore, in case prices are lacking, we develop...