Hospital cost efficiency is dependent on the potential to generate cost economies, which imply lower costs for hospitals that are, for example, larger or more diversified. Although scale and scope economies have been recognized in the literature on hospital costs, agglomeration economies due to...

Interpreting and using productivity and efficiency measures requires establishing the determinants and implications of observed performance. This is not a simple task, however, given the complex interactions among economic entities in modern markets. Identifying and quantifying performance...

Overfishing and excess capacity in mostfisheries around the world have generated considerableand increasing concern about their biological and economic performance ramifications. Theseproblems, in part, stem from substantialinvestment in technical improvements to boats andequipment in fishing...

Excess capacity poses one of the most pressingproblems that arise when industries exploitcommon-pool natural resources. It entailsover-investment in the capital stock andexcessive use of variable inputs, and placesadditional exploitation pressures on theresource stocks. Confusion persists over...

We evaluate the impacts of enhanced transportation systems on property values for U.S. manufacturing firms, allowing for higher-order spatial error correlation. We use a state-level model of production cost and input demand that recognizes the productive contribution of public transportation...

Drug abuse treatment has been pervasive in the US in the recent years, and the associated direct treatment costs approached $18 billion in 2001. However, there have been few published studies on scale economies, and none on scope economies, for drug abuse treatment costs. We estimate a...

What are the forces behind the increasing globalization of economic life? How does globalization affect the functioning of national economies? What difficulties confront government policymakers in dealing with the global economy? These issues are addressed in this volume by leading specialists....

A recent study suggested that output composition rather than technical efficiency changes were the primary result of dramatic regulatory reforms imposed on the New Zealand sheep and beef farming sector in the 1980s. These results raise important questions about the substitutability and cost...

We evaluate the productivity and input composition effects of outsourcing (or subcontracting) for Turkish textile and apparel manufacturing plants. We analyze differences in performance indicators for plants that subcontract inputs or outputs, and find that plants that outsource internationally...