The Dutch drinking water sector experienced two drastic changes over the last 10 years. Firstly, in 1997, the sector association started with a voluntary benchmarking aimed to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the sector. Secondly, merger activity arose. This paper develops a tailored...

School absenteeism (or truancy) may be a signal of an ongoing process of student attrition that eventually leads to early school leaving. This article estimates how unauthorized school absenteeism accelerates the dropout decision. In particular, the timing of the dropout decision of truants is...

This paper examines which configuration of teaching activities maximizes student performance. For this purpose a nonparametric efficiency model is formulated that accounts for (1) self-selection of students and teachers in better schools and (2) complementary teaching activities. The analysis...

Various policy measures have been taken in industrialized countries to reduce school dropout rates. This paper first examines the relationship between truancy and school dropout. Using fixed effects regressions and controlling for truancy peer group effects, we observe that truancy (measured as...

We present a novel framework for analyzing cost minimizing production behavior in multi-output settings. Our specific focus is on dealing with joint inputs, i.e. inputs that are simultaneously used for the production of multiple outputs. Here, we distinguish between two possible approaches. The...

Efficiency estimations which do not account for the operational environment where production units are operating in may have only a limited value. This article presents a fully nonparametric framework to estimate relative performance of production units when accounting for continuous and...

In case of regional discretionary on the implementation of policy measures, central governments often consider differences in outcomes as an indication that one policy was more effective than another policy. If uniform incentives are provided to motivate regional policy makers, these incentives...

Provision of most public goods (e.g., health care, libraries, education, police, fire protection, utilities) can be characterized by a two-stage production process. In the first-stage, basic inputs (e.g., labor and capital) are used to generate service potential (e.g., opening hours, materials),...

The growing importance attached to education as a key factor to improve economic performance coupled with the persistent scarcity of resources for education makes it important that skills and literacy are produced efficiently. This paper provides an international comparison of the efficiency of...

This article explains the benefits of using benchmarking tools in the public sector to drive up performance. The authors examine the case of European water utilities, focusing on four countries: Portugal, Belgium, The Netherlands and the UK. They argue for the creation of a European...