productivity in swedish electricity retail distribution this paper examines productivity growth in electricity retail distribution in sweden in a multiple output multiple input framework the approach used is nonparametric data envelopment analysis dea productivity is measured by means of the malmquist index productivity comparisons are made between different types of ownership and between different service areas the study indicates a high rate of productivity growth due to economies of density when measured over a period of 17 years the results show no significant differences in productivity growth between different types of ownership or economic organization

market concentration and competition in eastern europe a key feature of soviet type economies is the excessive concentration of production and the skewed size distribution of enterprises this is the root cause of the soft budget constraint and a natural outcome of the political economy of these countries given entrenched political support for a system which favours producers relative to consumers it will be hard to pursue an active competition policy though it is essential for successful reform we examine a hypothetical restructuring of polish state enterprises and argue that this should be undertaken before they are privatized hungary appears to have started such a process already this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

barriers to energy efficiency a comparison across the german commercial and services sector abstract based on a large sample for the german commercial and services sector this paper econometrically assesses the relevance of various types of barriers to energy efficiency at the sectoral level and across fifteen sub sectors the results at the level of entire sectors suggest that the lack of information about energy consumption patterns and about energy efficiency measures lack of staff time priority setting within organizations and in particular the investor user dilemma are all relevant barriers allowing for sector specific differences in the relevance of these individual barriers yields a more heterogeneous picture the numbers and types of relevant barriers vary across sub sectors and the majority of sub sectors are subject to relatively few barriers the statistically most significant barriers are found for the sub sector of public administrations these findings are robust independent of whether the definition of an organization s energy efficiency performance includes only measures that have actually been realized or also those that are being planned for planned projects however organizations appear to underestimate internal priority setting as a barrier to energy efficiency

competition and corporate performance are people right to think that competition improves corporate performance my investigations indicate first that there are some theoretical reasons for believing this hypothesis to be correct but they are not overwhelming furthermore the existing empirical evidence on this question is weak however the results reported here based on an analysis of around 670 u k companies do provide some support for this view most important i present evidence that competition as measured by increased numbers of competitors or by lower levels of rents is associated with a significantly higher rate of total factor productivity growth

the labour market in the new information economy the extension of information and communication technologies to economic activity is changing the labour market in important ways this article shows that computerization and use of the internet are associated with greater hours worked as well as higher wages that it occupations are rapidly increasing their share of employment that job search and recruitment are moving rapidly to the web with consequences for matching employers and employees and possibly most important of all that trade unions have begun to use the internet as a tool for servicing members and carrying their message to the public raising the possibility of a major change in the nature of the union movement

skill biased technological change and rising wage inequality some problems and puzzles the recent rise in wage inequality is usually attributed to skill biased technical change sbtc associated with new computer technologies we review the evidence for this hypothesis focusing on the implications of sbtc for overall wage inequality and for changes in wage differentials between groups a key problem for the sbtc hypothesis is that wage inequality stabilized in the 1990s despite continuing advances in computer technology sbtc also fails to explain the evolution of other dimensions of wage inequality including the gender and racial wage gaps and the age gradient in the return to education

competition and corporate governance in transition this paper examines the elements of institutional development critical to the enhancement of company performance in transition economies this includes initial conditions forms of privatization institutional frameworks and the competitiveness of markets comparing empirical evidence the paper concludes that there is a clear distinction in effectiveness of policies followed and their impact between central europe and cis countries this divergence is attributed to fundamentally different political attitudes toward reform the need of cis governments to gain political support for reform and as a consequence of the desire of central european countries to join european union

determinants of energy demand in the french service sector a decomposition analysis abstract this paper analyzes the changes in the energy consumption of the service sector in france over the period 1995 2006 using the logarithmic mean divisia index i lmdi i decomposition method the analysis is carried out at various disaggregation levels to highlight the specifics of each sub sector and end use according to their respective determinants the results show that in this period the economic growth of the service sector was the main factor that led to the increase in total energy consumption structure productivity substitution and intensity effects restricted this growth but with limited effect by analyzing each end use this paper enables a more precise understanding of the impact of these factors the activity effect was the main determinant of the increase in energy consumption for all end uses except for air conditioning for which the equipment rate effect was the main factor structural changes in the service sector primarily impacted energy consumption for space heating and cooking improvements in productivity limited the growth of energy consumption for all end uses except for cooking finally energy efficiency improvements mainly affected space heating energy use

efficiency analysis of hydroelectric generating plants a case study for portugal abstract this paper estimates changes in total productivity breaking this down into technically efficient change and technological change by means of data envelopment analysis dea applied to the hydroelectric energy generating plants of edp the portugal electricity company the aim of this procedure is to seek out those best practices that will lead to improved performance in the energy market we rank the plants according to their change in total productivity for the period 2001 2004 concluding that some plants experienced productivity growth while others experienced a decrease in productivity the implications arising from the study are that edp should adopt an internal benchmark management procedure in order to evaluate the relative position of each hydroelectric generating plant and to adopt managerial strategies designed to catch up with the frontier of best practices as the frontier is shifting along the time constant efforts are needed in this respect along the time

energy use efficiency in the indian manufacturing sector an interstate analysis abstract this paper approaches the measurement of energy efficiency from a production theoretic framework and uses data envelopment analysis to measure energy efficiency in the indian manufacturing sector using data from the annual survey of industries for the years 1998 99 through 2003 04 the study compares the energy efficiency in manufacturing across states based on several models the results show considerable variation in energy efficiency across states comparing the results across our models we find that the relative pricing of energy does not provide the appropriate incentives for energy conservation a second stage regression analysis reveals that states with a larger share of manufacturing output in energy intensive industries have lower energy efficiency also higher quality labor force associates with higher energy efficiency finally the power sector reforms have not yet had any significant impact on achieving energy efficiency

efficiency analysis of german electricity distribution utilities non parametric and parametric tests this study applies non parametric and parametric tests to assess the efficiency of electricity distribution companies in germany traditional issues in electricity sector benchmarking are addressed such as the role of scale effects and optimal utility size as well as new evidence specific to the situation in germany labour capital and peak load capacity are used as inputs and units sold and the number of customers as output the data cover 307 out of 553 german electricity distribution utilities a data envelopment analysis dea is applied with constant returns to scale crs as the main productivity analysis technique whereas stochastic frontier analysis sfa with distance function is the verification method the results suggest that returns to scale play but a minor role only very small utilities have a significant cost advantage low customer density is found to affect the efficiency score significantly in particular in the lower third of all observations surprisingly east german utiliti

enterprise reform and corporate governance in russia a quantitative survey the objective of this paper is to verify the range and depth of the study on corporate governance in russia through a comprehensive survey of 202 research works with regard to the internal structure of russian corporations a great deal of research has been conducted in a relatively short time since the collapse of the soviet union by many highly motivated researchers who have provided insightful perspectives these achievements however place too much emphasis on the empirical analysis of the interrelation between ownership structure and corporate restructuring leaving some critical themes open for further discussion as the 21st century begins a well balanced research base should be established in this field in order to identify the reality of russian corporations from a multifaceted perspective

efficient energy saving targets for apec economies abstract energy saving target ratios estr for 17 apec economies during 1991 2000 are computed in a total factor framework all nominal variables are transformed into real variables by the purchasing power parity ppp at the 1995 price level the data envelopment analysis dea approach is used to find the energy saving target est for apec economies without reducing their maximum potential gross domestic productions gdps in each year energy labor and capital are the three inputs while gdp is the single output our major findings are as follows 1 china has the largest est up to almost half of its current usage 2 hong kong the philippines and the united states have the highest energy efficiency 3 the energy efficiency generally increases for apec economies except for canada and new zealand 4 chile mexico and taiwan have significantly improved their energy efficiency in the last 5 years 5 an inverted u shape relation exists between per capita est and per capita gdp 6 estr has a positive relation with the value added percentage of gdp of the industry sector and a negative relation with that of the service sector

from theory into practice restructuring and dynamism in transition economies this paper draws on microeconomic industry level and macroeconomic evidence to investigate the mecha nisms of enterprise restructuring in transition economies its outcomes in terms of industry level export perform ance and its interaction with macroeconomic policy and constraints the aim is to throw light on the process by which catch up is taking place in the leading transition economies we begin at the micro level and find that institutional changes have produced improvements in performance more or less in line with theoretical predic tions variation in the extent ofpolicy changes helps to account for cross country differences in restructuring behaviour in the leading transition countries where growth has been under way for a number of years many features of the enterprise sector differentiate it from that of an advanced market economy to measure the extent of catch up associated with the reforms use is made of detailed information about the quality of goods traded on the eu market in the final section the inclusion of macroeconomic constraints allows distinctive transition paths to catching up in the visegrad countries to be identified

does ownership always matter abstract the objective of this paper is to explain and illustrate the complex relationship between ownership arrangements and enterprise performance it is commonly argued that efficiency will be lower in the public sector than the private because enterprise objectives deviate from maximisation of profits and because monitoring arrangements are inadequate due to the absence of capital market discipline we argue that public ownership does make the owner manager relationship more complicated because the chain of principals and agents is expanded objectives are politically determined and these are conveyed by a policy making administrative structure to management but the relative efficiency of public as against private ownership actually depends on the efficacy of capital market monitoring on the political and constitutional system on the information and sanctions available to policy makers and on the nature of the management market variation in these factors can help to explain the different natures and roles of the public sector between countries

wages and employment in a segmented labor market this paper analyzes the impact of business cycle fluctuations on a labor market segmented into a unionized primary sector and a competitive secondary sector either permanent or temporary changes in real aggregate demand are shown to widen the intersectoral wage differential in recession and under reasonable specifications of key parameters to cause greater fluctuations of primary sector employment than secondary sector employment this pattern agrees with the stylized facts of the u s economy

probing theoretically into central and eastern europe transactions resources and institutions since the 1990s central and eastern europe cee has provided unique societal quasi experiments which represent opportunities to test the applicability of existing theories in international business and management studies and to develop new ones specifically three lines of theorising have been advanced 1 organisational economics theories 2 resource based theories and 3 institutional theories for each of these theories we discuss how they contribute to the understanding of key issues such as entry strategies of foreign investors restructuring strategies of local incumbents and entry and growth strategies of entrepreneurs on this basis we assess how cee research has influenced the overall trajectories of theory development cee research has in particular highlighted the importance of contextual influences such as institutions thus scholars have aimed at incorporating institutions into theories such as organisational economics theories and resource based theories and advancing an institution based view of business strategy as a complementary perspective we outline how future research in cee and other emerging economies may advance this research agenda further

information in online labour markets online labour markets are virtual platforms that solve information problems to enable gains from trade in remote labour services they make employers and workers aware of each other and allow them to communicate contract and produce remotely recent research suggests however that organizing production to include remote work remains challenging because employers and workers in these markets continue to lack information that is less easily communicated employers appear unable to accurately anticipate the full costs and benefits to them of using the market prior to entry and continue to have difficulty evaluating worker applications even when experienced in these markets information is particularly incomplete when wage arbitrage opportunity is greatest

energy use in the service sector an international perspective abstract this study presents the first international comparison of energy use and structure in the service sector of major oecd countries this sector includes offices hospitals schools stores and other buildings commonly referred to as commercial buildings the authors separate service sector energy use from other sectors examine differences in fuel mix energy intensity electricity use and conservation experience as well as fundamental differences in the extent and make up of the building stock and the climate most countries are seen to have reduced energy intensity since 1973 all have reduced the share of heating oil and increased the use of electricity both for space conditioning as well as for other building services the authors find that energy intensity in us commercial and institutional buildings is among the highest in the oecd while electricity intensities in norway canada the usa and sweden are well above those in other countries

industry performance and structural efficiency measures solutions to problems in firm models abstract it is shown that average unit structural efficiency measures do not measure the level of technical efficiency in a firm model of an industry alternative structural efficiency measures generalized to multiple input and multiple output technologies are presented as a solution to the problem of how to estimate the relative performance of an industry as a whole where reallocation of inputs across firms is not feasible compared to existing measures the proposed measures require additional information therefore the linear programming dea models needed to obtain this information are presented this non parametric approach to relative efficiency measurement is also used to obtain economic efficiency estimates for an industry as a whole without imposing a priori restrictions on the relative input and output weights

malmquist indices of productivity change in the uk gas industry before and after privatization the uk government s privatization programme was justified in terms of potential efficiency gains this paper concentrates on measures of technical efficiency in the regions of the uk natural gas industry before and after privatization and the associated regulatory changes it uses non parametric frontier analysis and malmquist indices to show that the rate of productivity growth increased significantly after privatization however the differences in technical efficiency amongst regions remain suggesting that failure to break up the industry has sacrificed potential gains from direct competition or indirect competition through yardstick regulation

endogenous asset ownership structures in deregulated markets abstract this paper determines the equilibrium ownership structure in an emerging market deregulated by a joint privatization and investment liberalization it is shown that bidding competition in the privatization stage is not sufficient for reaching an efficient equilibrium market structure competition in the ensuing entry stage is also required otherwise one firm can induce another to take the role of the weak firm in the subsequent product market competition by making concessions in the bidding in the privatization auction it is also shown that employment guarantees may help the buyer of the privatized firm abstain from investing and thus create a less competitive market structure

how effectively low carbon society development models contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation action plans in asia abstract backcasting is not a new concept for scientists dealing with carbon mitigation or climate change mitigation issues around the world but could be an innovative idea for public local and national policy planners as they are so far only familiar with forecast scenarios for different issues and sectors defining a roadmap to achieving low carbon targets and explaining these targets in quantitative form as much as possible is known as backcasting plenty of computer based quantitative models and tools are used to outline low carbon society scenarios in the asia pacific region and implementations of such models are underway this paper spotlights these quantitative models and tools which are used to achieve backcasting benchmarks these models are critically reviewed for their functioning and real possibilities on ground levels and suggestions have been made to improve practical implementation in developing asia the study found that all these models are highly acceptable and applicable in asian countries but actual applications are rare with japan as the leading country in implementing such applications followed by malaysia estimation of co 2 sinks open availability and energy service demands built in option are major weaknesses of the models we also concluded that these computer based quantitative models are helpful for almost all of the countries of the asia pacific region facing such issues as data limitation fewer resources and lack of government participation

information technology and the changing workplace in canada firm level evidence recent advances in information and communication technology ict have had dramatic effects on both individual and workplace performance use of computers and the internet as general purpose technologies has spread rapidly across all sectors of the economy transforming business organization increasing competition and fostering innovation understanding the influence of ict on the dynamics of the workplace requires information on both demand and supply sides of the labor market but it is only recently that the study of both sides of the market has become feasible using linked employer employee data in this article we investigate the effects of new technology on firm productivity using the rich canadian workplace and employee survey for the period 1999 2003 we apply a mixed regression model which includes both firm and employee characteristics as well as their interactions with computer use our model allows us to control for unobserved heterogeneity at higher levels along many dimensions our findings indicate that computer use by employees has a positive and significant effect on the productivity of firms that the effect has not lost its momentum and that spillover effects are not significant moreover human capital enhances the effect of computer use on productivity but organizational changes do not interact with computer use in our sample period copyright 2011 the author 2011 published by oxford university press on behalf of associazione icc all rights reserved oxford university press

employment determination in enterprises under communism and in transition evidence from central europe the authors present a comparative analysis of employment determination in four transition economies as they moved from central planning to a market economy in the early 1990s they use firm level panel data sets from the czech republic hungary poland and slovakia to estimate dynamic employment equations for the period from immediately before to immediately after the start of transition for the most part firms appear to have been quick to adjust employment to wage levels and there is little evidence of labor hoarding there were important cross country variations in the determinants of employment during the reform process however hungarian and polish firms started the transition already substantially reformed and became even more responsive to market signals as transition proceeded in contrast firms in the czech and slovak republics started in the completely unresponsive mode characteristic of central planning but rapidly caught up with their counterparts in hungary and poland

malmquist indices of productivity growth during the deregulation of norwegian banking 1980 89 productivity growth during the deregulation of the norwegian banking industry is studied within the framework of data envelopment analysis which explicitly allows for multiple outputs introducing malmquist indices for productivity growth total growth can be decomposed into frontier growth and change in each bank s distance to the frontier both the total growth index and its components can be consistently chained over time we find productivity regress at the average bank prior to the deregulation but rapid growth when deregulation took place deregulation also led to less dispersion of productivity levels within the industry

analysis of energy use and co2 emission in service industries evidence from sweden this study analyses the trends in energy use and co2 emissions for 19 sub sectors in the swedish service sectors following the classification of the international standard industrial classification

regional and sectoral attribution to percentage changes in the european divisia carbonization index abstract concerns on rising concentrations of co2 in the atmosphere and global warming have increased in recent years numerous environmental studies analyze the trends in co2 emissions and their main drivers in this paper we focus on the dynamics of the carbonization effect as a driving force for co2 emissions in the european union eu by implementing the sato vartia logarithmic mean divisia index method the trend of european emissions in the 2000 2010 period is factorized by both sector and country the analysis stresses the relevance of the carbonization and intensity effects in order to reduce emissions then based on so called attribution analysis we present a new theoretical framework that enables the attribution of both economic sector and individual eu member state to percentage changes in the carbonization index results show strong concentration of this reducing influence in some big economies in fact germany the united kingdom france and italy have contributed by more than 50 industry emerges as the most influential sector contributing to offset any improvement in the carbonization index our findings suggest strategies aiming at encouraging innovation technical change research on higher quality energies fuel substitution and installation of abatement technologies particularly in the industrial sector of large economies

effects of financial development indicators on energy consumption and co2 emission of european east asian and oceania countries the financial crisis is considered a major economic issue and energy consumption and pollution are believed to be one of the most important environmental concerns in the new millennium the review on investigation of the nexus among energy consumption gdp growth financial development and co2 emission has shown no definitive conclusion apart from that the effects of financial development on energy consumption are not yet understood properly thus this article investigates the effects of financial indicator shocks i e credit market and stock market shocks on energy consumption and carbon dioxide co2 emissions and vice versa panel vector auto regression pvar models were employed to investigate the relationships in 13 european and 12 east asia and oceania countries from 1989 to 2011 findings emphasize the important role of co2 emission and energy consumption on explaining each other s deviation with only the degree of effect differing although energy consumption and co2 emission shocks on financial indicators such as private sector credit is not very pronounced in both groups of countries but the strength of energy consumption shock on stock return rate in european countries is greater than east asian and oceania countries conversely shocks to stock return rate influence energy consumption especially in long horizon in case of east asia and oceania countries

when does privatization work the impact of private ownership on corporate performance in the transition economies this paper compares the performance of privatized and state firms in the transition economies of central europe while controlling for various forms of selection bias it argues that privatization has different effects depending on the types of owners to whom it gives control in particular privatization to outsider but not insider owners has significant performance effects where privatization is effective the effect on revenue performance is very pronounced but there is no comparable effect on cost reduction overlooking the strong revenue effect of privatization to outsider owners leads to a substantial overstatement of potential employment losses from postprivatization restructuring

technology and the labour market the assessment this article reviews the evidence on how technology will affect labour markets in advanced democracies over the next 10 15 years in addition to assessing evidence on the impact of technology on the aggregate number of jobs we take a wider view to consider how the digital revolution will affect the quality and composition of jobs how and where we work and whether labour is supplied as part of a larger firm or as a self employed micro entrepreneur this assessment further aims to situate the papers covered in this issue of the oxford review of policy within the broader literature

electric power distribution economies of scale mergers and restructuring electricity distribution is generally viewed as a natural monopoly and therefore as having the least potential for the kinds of reforms that have swept the electric power sector in many countries mergers among distribution companies and efforts at retail competition have nonetheless altered the operation of the distribution stage this research into us electric utilities uses a much larger and less selective data base than previously available to examine the scale properties of distribution with respect to output distance and customer numbers and for different functions within distribution it finds significant economies at low output levels holding system size and customer density constant but the cost gradient is otherwise modest it also finds that geographic size and customer numbers are quite important and that economies are significantly stronger for the infrastructure or wires business than for the marketing function performed by distribution utilities these results lend credence to effort

estimating the linkage between energy efficiency and productivity abstract many analyses have referred to industrial productivity benefits associated with energy efficiency that are at least as great or larger than the energy benefits if plants with higher energy intensity also tend to have lower productivity then energy policy needs to consider this this study examines this issue for two segments of the glass industry using plant level data from the census bureau productivity is defined by the difference in best practice production efficiency as measured by data envelopment analysis dea this study uses regression analysis to estimate how differences in plant level electricity and fossil fuel intensity i e energy use per unit of production are attributable to differences in plant level productivity and other economic variables like energy prices and cumulative production in every case productivity differences between plants are statistically significant in explaining differences in plant energy intensity the coefficient that links productivity to energy efficiency yields a less than proportional impact for only one industry and fuel type for others the relationship is implies that a 1 increase in productivity increase energy efficiency by more than 1 this effect is statistically significant for flat glass but not container glass the estimates of the price and learning by doing coefficients seem reasonable but without imposing the assumption that all plants in the industry are equally productive this lends further credence to a significant relationship between productivity and energy efficiency

a comprehensive review of data envelopment analysis dea approach in energy efficiency the main aim of this review article is to review of dea models in regarding to energy efficiency this paper reviewed and summarized the different models of dea that have been applied around the world to development of energy efficiency problems consequently a review of 144 published scholarly papers appearing in 45 high ranking journals between 2006 and 2015 have been obtained to achieve a comprehensive review of dea application in energy efficiency accordingly the selected articles have been categorized based on year of publication author s nationalities scope of study time duration application area study purpose results and outcomes results of this review paper indicated that dea showed great promise to be a good evaluative tool for future analysis on energy efficiency issues where the production function between the inputs and outputs was virtually absent or extremely difficult to acquire

perspectives on multinational enterprises in emerging economies multinational enterprises mnes play a pivotal role in the development of many emerging economies in consequence they became the focus of scholarly research by economists and policy analysts in contrast international business scholars have been comparatively uninterested in analysing this role of mnes yet they could make important contributions to these debates first studies taking the individual firms as starting point would enhance understanding of the interaction between mnes and the local environment second theories and research methodologies developed in international business research could provide new insights into the dynamics of mnes in emerging economies the objective of this paper is to motivate more international business scholars to engage in research on positive and negative spillovers from foreign direct investment fdi in emerging economy societies to advance this research agenda scholars need to analyse the specific activities and capabilities of the firms involved and the impact of fdi on the broader social and environmental context for management this agenda raises the ethical question to what extent ought businesses to care about their local stakeholders

scale economies in electricity distribution a semiparametric analysis we estimate the costs of distributing electricity using data on municipal electric utilities in ontario canada for the period 1993 5 the data reveal substantial evidence of increasing returns to scale with minimum efficient scale being achieved by firms with about 20 000 customers larger firms exhibit constant or decreasing returns utilities which deliver additional services such as water sewage have significantly lower costs indicating the presence of economies of scope our basic specifications comprise semiparametric variants of the translog cost function where output enters non parametrically and remaining variables including their interactions with output are parametric we rely upon non parametric differencing techniques and extend a previous differencing test of equality of non parametric regression functions to a panel data setting copyright 2000 john wiley sons ltd

productivity in multiple output public service a quadratic frontier function and malmquist index approach abstract the purpose of this study is to analyse the development of productivity and structural efficiency for an extended period of time 1974 to 1987 in the production of public social insurance services in sweden the analysis is based on the estimation of a deterministic flexible single input multiple output frontier production function the findings indicate a productivity decrease for the entire period from 1974 to 1987 of 18 percent in the period 1974 to 1982 productivity decreased by approximately 30 percent but at the end of the period 1984 to 1987 there was a productivity recovery of about 11 percent

industrial energy efficiency and driving forces behind efficiency improvement evidence from the pearl river delta urban agglomeration in china abstract improving energy efficiency of industrial sectors is essential to achieve energy conservation in the pearl river delta urban agglomeration prdua in china this study adopted stochastic frontier analysis sfa to evaluate the industrial total factor energy efficiency tfee of nine cities in prdua during 2004 2016 and then to decompose the growth of tfee into technical change tc technical efficiency change tec and economies of scale sc effects results show that the tfee of industrial sectors of prdua had an overall downward trend during the study period and that technical change was the major driving force behind the growth of tfee the tobit model was then adopted to further investigate the determinants of energy efficiency improvement and test the robustness of empirical results the main contributions of this study to the existing literature lie in showing that 1 the degree of openness local government spending foreign direct investment factor input structure environmental regulation strength and gdp per capita have positive impacts on the industrial tfee 2 enterprise scale and energy consumption structure have a negative impact on industrial energy efficiency finally we address policy implications for energy management regarding their economic and environmental aspects in industrial sectors of the prdua

what is the best practice for benchmark regulation of electricity distribution comparison of dea sfa and stoned methods electricity distribution is a natural local monopoly in many countries the regulators of this sector apply frontier methods such as data envelopment analysis dea or stochastic frontier analysis sfa to estimate the efficient cost of operation in finland a new stoned method was adopted in 2012 this paper compares dea sfa and stoned in the context of regulating electricity distribution using data from finland we compare the impacts of methodological choices on cost efficiency estimates and acceptable cost while the efficiency estimates are highly correlated the cost targets reveal major differences in addition we examine performance of the methods by monte carlo simulations we calibrate the data generation process dgp to closely match the empirical data and the model specification of the regulator we find that the stoned estimator yields a root mean squared error rmse of 4 with the sample size 100 precision improves as the sample size increases the dea estimator yields an rmse of approximately 10 but performance deteriorates as the sample size increases the sfa estimator has an rmse of 144 the poor performance of sfa is due to the wrong functional form and multicollinearity

the effects of operating and capital subsidies on total factor productivity a decomposition approach past studies relied on ad hoc associations to establish relationships between productivity on one hand and operating and capital subsidies on the other this article deviates from these studies it builds on recent research based on private cost to derive a total factor productivity formula that includes subsidy effects it specifies an empirical model to estimate the required parameters to apply the formula the application to urban transit systems shows that the effects of these subsidies on productivity through technical change reinforce the decline in productivity sakano obeng and azam 1997 applied the stochastic frontier method to public transit data and decomposed allocative inefficiency between internal factors and subsidies they found that the internal factors contributed more toward allocative inefficiencies and subsidies accounted for less than 25 of the technical inefficiencies in transit firms these authors also found operating subsidies to be the major sources of the inefficiencies and that capital subsidies mostly acted as a counterbalancing factor in reducing the inefficiencies these findings suggest that both subsidies play opposing roles in affecting performance and inefficiency and that while capital subsidies increase partial productivity measures operating subsidies may reduce them these effects of subsidies on partial productivity will also affect total factor productivity tfp therefore there is a link between operating and capital subsidies and tfp and we must find a way to decompose the changes in tfp such that we can identify the effects of subsidies this decomposition is the motivation for this article we develop a decomposition method for tfp that permits the contributions of subsidies to be isolated and apply the method to public transit data the article therefore makes contributions in both methodology and application the basis of the decomposition is an extension of the methods discussed in obeng 1994 obeng and azam 1997 and sakano obeng and azam 1997 to derive a tfp measure that depends on subsidies these methods hold that firms maximize output subject to a net cost constraint where net cost is total cost less operating and capital subsidies the dual of this constrained output maximization is that firms minimize their private cost subject to a production function constraint this objective is different from those frequently adopted in the public transit

make money surfing the web the impact of internet use on the earnings of u s workers much research on the digital divide presumes that adults who do not use the internet are economically disadvantaged yet little research has tested this premise after discussing several mechanisms that might produce differences in earnings growth between workers who do and do not use the internet we use data from the current population survey to examine the impact of internet use on changes in earnings over 13 month intervals at the end of the internet boom our analyses reveal robustly significant positive associations between web use and earnings growth indicating that some skills and behaviors associated with internet use were rewarded by the labor market consistent with human capital theory current use at work had the strongest effect on earnings in contrast to economic theory which has led economists to focus exclusively on effects of contemporaneous workplace technology use workers who used the internet only at home also did better suggesting that users may have benefited from superior

efficiency and ownership structure the case of poland we examine the effects of foreign entry on productive efficiency during the polish investment liberalisation the performance of foreign acquisitions is compared to foreign firms entering the marke

the malmquist total factor productivity index the definitions of the malmquist output and input quantity indexes specified by d w caves l r christensen and w e diewert 1982 are applied in this study based on these indexes a malmquist total factor productivity index is derived for general production structures the definition maintains the fundamental characteristic of a productivity index as a ratio between an output quantity change index and an input quantity change index this index provides a remedy for the shortcoming of the traditional definition of the malmquist productivity index in that the latter does not correctly measure changes in productivity in the presence of changes in returns to scale copyright 1996 by the editors of the scandinavian journal of economics

restructuring of firms in transition ownership institutions and openness to trade we develop a theoretical framework for defensive and strategic restructuring and provide estimates of restructuring in privatized firms in an advanced transition economy slovenia our rich data point to both types of restructuring as well credit rationing and bargaining with respect to investment privatized firms display profit maximizing behavior and a firm s export orientation and institutional features such as insider vs outsider privatization employee ownership and employee control do not affect the firm s employment and investment behavior the results suggest that a major exposure to world competition induces similar economic behavior in firms with different structural and institutional characteristics

estimating and decomposing productivity growth of the electricity generation industry in malaysia a stochastic frontier analysis this study examines the total factor productivity tfp growth of the malaysian electricity generation industry over the 1998 to 2005 period the stochastic frontier analysis sfa approach is used to measure tfp change and decompose tfp growth into efficiency change and technical progress we find that it achieved average annual tfp growth of 2 34 with technical change contributing the most to the tfp growth over the eight year period we hence hypothesise that the new power plants with their newer capital embodied technologies commencing during the sample period are likely to be the main reason for this strong technical change in addition it is also noted that this estimate for the malaysian electricity generation industry is larger than the estimate obtained for the electricity sector as a whole where we obtain 1 34 per year for a comparable period

the returns to computer use revisited have pencils changed the wage structure too are the large measured wage differentials for on the job computer use a true return to computer skills or do they just reflect that higher wage workers use computers on their jobs we examine this issue with three large cross sectional surveys from germany first we confirm that the estimated wage differential associated with computer use in germany is very similar to the u s differential second we also measure large differentials for on the job use of calculators telephones pens or pencils or for those who work while sitting down we argue that these findings cast some doubt on the literal interpretation of the computer use wage differential as reflecting true returns to computer use or skill

electricity consumption and ict in the french service sector the paper documents the evolution of electricity use and the development of information and communication ic technologies in the french service sector to that purpose we put together two data sets documenting electricity consumption and the diffusion of ic capital goods using a simple factor demand model we estimate the structural parameters of the model using both the time series and the cross sectional dimension of the data and allow for a specific effect of ic capital goods on the efficiency of electricity in production we obtain robust results showing that once controlled for technical progress prices and heated areas electricity intensity of production increases with computers and software while it decreases with the diffusion of communication device

performance and efficiency in colombia s power distribution system effects of the 1994 reform we assess evolution in performance efficiency and productivity of colombia s power distribution utilities before and after the 1994 regulatory reform that introduced electricity market activities for the power sector in 12 distribution companies from 1985 to 2001 performance is evaluated contrasting changes in mean and median by wilcoxon rank sum and pearson tests on financial and other performance indicators technical efficiency is measured by means of data envelopment analysis dea the nature of the dataset allows the estimation of malmquist productivity index and its evolution in time results show a recovery after the reform in the main performance indicators of profitability partial input productivity and output plant efficiency and productivity increased after the reform mainly in the largest utilities used as benchmarks in the dea efficiency scores measures meanwhile the less efficient power distribution companies did not improved after the reform and were not able to undertake plant restructuring to catch up in plant efficiency with respect to the pareto efficient input allocations econometric results on dea efficiency scores suggest a positive effect of policy reform

productivity growth and incentive regulation in austria s gas distribution abstract the projected rate of productivity growth is the critical determinant of the price cap in incentive regulation however the regulatory authorities generally lack sophisticated industry tfp studies to set an optimal cap we thus estimate productivity growth in the austrian gas distribution sector in a translog cost function framework a key feature is our unique panel database on costs and outputs of regulated utilities for the period 2002 2013 covering six years prior and during incentive regulation as introduced in 2008 we find a modest tfp growth rate in the early sample years followed by a decline to zero or even slightly negative rates in recent years we also find a significant potential for returns to scale which is left unexploited indicating that utilities could significantly save on costs by merging as essential investments have already been undertaken in the past opportunities for technological progress seem to be limited in recent years

theoretical foundations of emerging economy business research in probing theoretically into central and eastern europe transactions resources and institutions we outlined the contributions of research in central and eastern europe cee to theoretical debates in business research in this retrospective we reflect upon the evolution of the field over the past decade with the fading impact of cee s distinct shared history we suggest that cee best be analyzed as emerging economies rather than as a distinct geographic entity emerging economy business research is converging on common themes and shared theoretical ideas while identifying critical variations that constrain generalizations among and beyond emerging economies this research thus highlights the need to develop a better understanding of the boundary conditions of scholarly theories of business knowledge over the past decade the institution based view has emerged from distinct intellectual traditions in institutional economics organizational theory and the analysis of business government bargaining research in these converging lines of theorizing places contextual variations at the center of explanations of business phenomena around the world we suggest that the institution based view is evolving toward a paradigm and offer suggestions on how to advance this research agenda further in particular by exploring how firms engage with different sets of potentially conflicting institutions at multiple levels and locations

emulation inequality and work hours was thorsten veblen right we investigate the manner in which a desire to emulate the rich influences individuals allocation of time between labour and leisure greater inequality inducing longer work hours as a result data on work hours in ten countries over the period 1963 98 show that greater inequality is indeed associated longer work hours these veblen effects are large and the estimates are robust using country fixed effects and other specifications because consumption inequality is a public bad a social welfare optimum cannot be implemented by a flat tax on consumption but may be accomplished by more complicated progressive consumption taxes at the close of the nineteenth century thorsten veblen proposed what he termed pecuniary emulation as the foundation of a theory of consumption spending he maintained is driven by relative status considerations that is by the desire to be a particular type of person as much as bythedesire to enjoytheconsumer goodsper se the joneses with whom one had to keep up were not the neighbours but the rich theirleveloflivingbecamethenever attainableobjectiveinaconsumptionarmsrace among the less well to do in the theory of the leisure class he wrote the motive is emulation the stimulus of an invidious comparison especially in any community in which class distinctions are quite vague all canons and reputability and decency and all standards of consumption are traced back by insensible gradations to the usages and thoughts of the highest social and pecuniary class the wealthy leisure class 1934 p 81 while valued by some economists as capturing common sense aspects of consumption as a form of status seeking veblen s view of social preferences was soon eclipsed by the simpler and more tractable neoclassical theory of the consumer relegated to the underworld of economics veblen s ideas have nonetheless resonated over the ensuing years in the writing of duesenberry 1949 leibenstein 1950 and galbraith 1958 at the middle of the past century and schor 1998

energy efficiency analysis of the economic system in china during 1986 2012 a parallel slacks based measure approach abstract the economic system in china is composed of three internal parallel industries primary secondary and tertiary industries to examine energy efficiency of the economic system this paper proposes a parallel slacks based measure approach in the described approach the measures of energy efficiencies and energy saving potentials for the whole system and its three industries are defined application of the proposed approach to the economic system in china during 1986 2012 shows that it can be effectively used to measure energy efficiency of the evaluated system with several parallel sub systems the institutional influential factors of energy efficiency in china are also examined the following findings can be achieved based on the application results 1 the inefficiency of the economic system in china is mainly sourced from the lower energy performance of the secondary industry 2 energy efficiency of the economic system increases during the study time period with an exception during 2001 2005 3 it is better for the whole economic system to improve energy efficiency which can help to save much more energy consumption in production in china and 4 economic development is estimated to have positive impacts on national energy efficiency while energy structure adjustment and industrial structure optimization have negative effects on national energy efficiency