This paper specifies an empirical framework for estimating both technical and allocative efficiency, which is applied to a large panel of European banks over the years 1996 to 2003. Our methodology allows for self-consistent measurement of technical and allocative inefficiency, in an effort to...

The paper proposes a stochastic frontier model with random coefficients to separate technical inefficiency from technological differences across firms, and free the frontier model from the restrictive assumption that all firms must share exactly the same technological possibilities. Inference...

The paper examines whether inflation systematically distorts the informational content of price signals. A shadow cost function is specified, and the deviation of shadow from actual prices is modeled as a function of the level of economy-wide inflation, as well as other conditioning variables...

Consistent specifications of the allocative inefficiency function in 'cost plus input share equations' systems may be difficult, if not impossible, to find because most plausible ones violate certain reasonable "a priori" conditions. Moreover, the models to which they lead give rise to highly...