Directional distance functions provide very flexible tools for investigating the performance of Decision Making Units (DMUs). Their flexibility relies on their ability to handle undesirable outputs and to account for non-discretionary inputs and/or outputs by fixing zero values in some elements...

This paper demonstrates that the bootstrap procedure suggested by Ferrier and Hirschberg (1997) gives inconsistent estimates. A very simple example is given to illustrate the statistical issues underlying nonparametric efficiency measurement and the problems with the Ferrier/Hirschberg approach,...

University rankings are the subject of a paradox: the more they are criticized by social scientists and experts on methodological grounds, the more they receive attention in policy making and the media. In this paper we attempt to give a contribution to the birth of a new generation of rankings,...

Efficiency scores of production units are generally measured relative to an estimated production frontier. Nonparametric estimators (DEA, FDH, \cdots ) are based on a finite sample of observed production units. The bootstrap is one easy way to analyze the sensitivity of efficiency scores...

In productivity and efficiency analysis, the technical efficiency of a production unit is measured through its distance to the efficient frontier of the production set. The most familiar non-parametric methods use Farrell–Debreu, Shephard, or hyperbolic radial measures. These approaches...