Over the last few years there have been increasing concerns about the energy mix in many countries. These concerns have been of greater magnitude for countries with a common energy regulation such as European Union (EU) member states. In order to choose a given energy mix, an important aspect to...

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) models have been intensively used for measuring efficiency in a variety of contexts. More recently, the inclusion of undesirable outputs has extended their use to analyze relevant fields such as environmental efficiency. In this context, Slacks-Based Measure (SBM)...

This article evaluates the evolution of environmental performance in the context of the European Union (EU), over the period 1993–2010. The context is particularly relevant, due to the traditionally high concerns of the EU about these issues, which has triggered off several initiatives and...

The analysis of efficiency and productivity in banking has received a great deal of attention for almost three decades now. However, most of the existing literature to date has not explicitly accounted for risk when measuring efficiency. We propose an analysis of profit efficiency taking into...

There is a longstanding controversy over precisely what it is that banks produce. However, there is little evidence on the sensitivity of bank cost efficiency results when different output definitions are applied. This paper does exactly that. In particular, we compare nonparametric efficiency...

This study explores the impact of ownership types on efficiency of Italian water utilities. Theories and evidence have shown a puzzling relationship between ownership and performance. Moreover, a recent study argues that this relationship can be further complicated by the effect of...

This study uses the global Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index to measure performance change in the educational systems of 28 countries participating in the TIMSS 2007 and 2011 for eighth grade basic education students in the discipline of mathematics. This methodology is particularly...

This paper analyzes the dynamics of cost efficiency scores in the Spanish banking industry during the 1985—1995 period and the way in which such dynamics are influenced by specialization. Efficiency is estimated by a nonparametric approach, and a model of distribution dynamics has been applied...