The paper investigates the impact of subsidies and of para-agriculture on the technical efficiency of organic farms in Switzerland, Austria and Southern Germany. The data-set consists of bookkeeping data with 1,704 observations in the years 2003 to 2005. Technical efficiency is modelled using a...

This paper explores the consequences for parametric and non-parametric efficiency levels and rankings when using grouped instead of individual Decision Making Units (DMU). The bias results due to the differences of the grouped DMUs frontier compared to the individual DMUs frontier. Monte Carlo...

We measure the efficiency of regional innovation systems (RIS) in Germany by means of a knowledge production function. This function relates private sector Research and Development (R&D) in a region to the number of inventions that have been registered by residents of that region. Two approaches...

The vast majority of the efficiency and productivity measurement literature has been based on the static viewpoint of the firm. Few studies have developed the dynamic analog of static efficiency measurement, introducing the notions of long-run efficiency and inefficiency persistence. However,...

A detailed decomposition of the sources of the Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth index within an output distance function framework was carried out, looking at the following components: technical change, change in technical efficiency, scale component, and violations of the profit...