This paper defines a decomposition of technical efficiency for a series of nonparametric deterministic reference technologies related to the Free Disposal Hull. More specifically, introducing several returns to scale assumptionsinto this non-convex production model allows one to distinguish...

The purpose of this note is to define a new and more general method to obtain qualitative information about returns to scale for individual observations. In a second section the traditional methods developed for estimating returns to scale on nonparametric deterministic reference technologies...

This article determines the sources of observed technically inefficient behaviour among French urban transit companies using non-parametric deterministic frontier specifications of technology. Decomposing overall technical efficiency yields component-wise efficiency measures reflecting scale,...

A new decomposition of the Malmquist productivity index is proposed to account for changes in plant capacity utilization. Using a primal, non-parametric specification of technology, the Malmquist index is decomposed into technical efficiency change, variations in plant capacity utilization and...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the sensitivity of a recently proposed non-parametric approach to technical efficiency measurement. Using a data set of Belgian municipalities, we analyze the sensitivity of the Free Disposal Hull (FDH) approach with respect to the number of input and...

This note proposes a new decomposition of the Malmquist productivity index to account for changes in plant capacity utilisation. Using a primal, non-parametric specification of technology, the Malmquist index is decomposed into technical efficiency change, variations in plant capacity...

This paper explores a selection of recently proposed bootstrapping techniques to estimate non-parametric convex (DEA) cost frontiers and efficiency scores for transit firms. Using a sample of Norwegian bus operators, the key results can be summarised as follows: (i) the bias implied by...

This article provides a comprehensive survey of the literature on production and cost frontiers for public transit operators, and it evaluates the contributions of frontier analysis to our understanding of the performance of the public transport sector. We first succinctly contrast best practice...