The challenge of the econometric problem in production efficiency analysis is that the very efficiency scores to be analyzed are unobserved. Recently, statistical properties have been discovered for a class of estimators popular in the literature, known as data envelopment analysis (DEA)...

In this paper we show that the exchange rates of some commodity exporter countries have the ability to predict the price of spot and future contracts of aluminum. This is shown with both in-sample and out-of-sample analyses. The theoretical underpinning of these results relies on the...

Interaction terms are often misinterpreted in the empirical economics literature by assuming that the coefficient of interest represents unconditional marginal changes. I present the correct way to estimate conditional marginal changes in a series of non-linear models including (ordered)...

This article analyses the technical efficiency of coffee production in Nicaragua. We apply a stochastic frontier model to estimate the technical efficiency which reaches 60%; this means that Nicaraguan coffee producers have chances to improve the way they get things done. This level of...

Sample selection problems are pervasive when working with micro economic models and datasets of individuals, households or firms. During the last three decades, there have been very significant developments in this area of econometrics. Different type of models have been proposed and used in...

The stochastic frontier model was first proposed in the context of production function estimation to account for the effect of technical inefficiency. The inefficiency causes actual output to fall below the potential level (that is, the production frontier) and also raises production cost above...

In this paper we propose a very flexible estimator in the context of truncated regression that does not require parametric assumptions. To do this, we adapt the theory of local maximum likelihood estimation. We provide the asymptotic results and illustrate the performance of our estimator on...

This paper empirically examines the relationship between fiscal decentralization and public sector efficiency. A country-level dataset is used to measure public sector efficiency in delivering education and health services and the new indices are regressed on well-established decentralization...

Survival prediction from a large number of covariates is a current focus of statistical and medical research. In this paper, we study a methodology known as the compound covariate prediction performed under univariate Cox proportional hazard models. We demonstrate via simulations and real data...

A growing strand of economic literature focuses its attention on the relationship between happiness levels and various individual and socioeconomic variables. Recent studies analyze the impact of income, marital status, health and educational levels and other socioeconomic variables on...