measuring excess capital capacity in agricultural production we introduce the concept excess capital capacity and employ a stochastic input requirement frontier to measure excess capital capacity in agricultural production we also propose a two step estimation method that allows endogenous regressors in stochastic frontier models the first step uses generalized method of moments to get consistent estimates of the frontier parameters in the presence of endogenous regressors the second step uses maximum likelihood to measure excess capital capacity and evaluate the factors that influence it the empirical application to dutch cash crop farms found varying degrees of excess capital capacity the policy implications of excess capital capacity are discussed

labour use efficiency in swedish social insurance offices this paper considers the estimation of frontier production functions in panel data models it proposes a multi stage method to obtain estimates of 1 the parameters of a flexible input requirement function and 2 technical inefficiency decomposed into time invariant firm specific time varying and the residual components the proposed method is used to analyse labour use efficiency of swedish local social insurance offices on the basis of a large panel of observations during the time period 1974 84 empirical results show 1 substantial variations in labour use efficiency among these offices with the mean efficiencies declining over time 2 presence of economies of scale thereby meaning that most of the offices were of suboptimal size

national research funding and energy efficiency evidence from the national science foundation of china abstract the enhancement of energy efficiency is crucial to saving energy and reducing pollution emissions increasing investment in basic research may promote innovative energy technologies that improve energy efficiency in this paper the authors employ a stochastic frontier analysis to evaluate the impact of government funded research programs on improving national energy efficiency using estimates of energy efficiency based on the shepherd energy distance function the analysis used panel data from 30 provinces in china over the 2006 2015 period using the number of research programs funded by the national natural science foundation of china nsfc as a proxy the results show that research funding has a significantly negative effect on energy inefficiency the average energy efficiency continually increased from 2006 to 2015 in china while the energy efficiency in the eastern region was higher than that in the central and western regions in most years moreover a robustness test further validates and supports these findings some policy implications are proposed based on the empirical results

inventory models with ramp type demand rate partial backlogging and weibull deterioration rate in this paper an inventory model with general ramp type demand rate time dependent weibull deterioration rate and partial backlogging of unsatisfied demand is considered the model is studied under the following different replenishment policies a starting with no shortages and b starting with shortages the model is fairly general as the demand rate up to the time point of its stabilization is a general function of time the backlogging rate is any non increasing function of the waiting time up to the next replenishment the optimal replenishment policy for the model is derived for both the above mentioned policies

us residential energy demand and energy efficiency a stochastic demand frontier approach this paper estimates a us frontier residential aggregate energy demand function using panel data for 48 states over the period 1995 to 2007 using stochastic frontier analysis sfa utilizing an econometric energy demand model the in efficiency of each state is modeled and it is argued that this represents a measure of the inefficient use of residential energy in each state i e waste energy this underlying efficiency for the us is therefore observed for each state as well as the relative efficiency across the states moreover the analysis suggests that energy intensity is not necessarily a good indicator of energy efficiency whereas by controlling for a range of economic and other factors the measure of energy efficiency obtained via this approach is this is a novel approach to model residential energy demand and efficiency and it is arguably particularly relevant given current us energy policy discussions related to energy efficiency

joint pricing and inventory control for fresh produce and foods with quality and physical quantity deteriorating simultaneously abstract a great number of models have been proposed to investigate the deterioration inventory however most of models assume that a fixed physical quantity of items deteriorates over time the quality of items does not decay before their expiration dates in practice the quality and physical quantity of many products including fresh produce and foods often deteriorate over time the quality of an item usually plays an important role in influencing the demand for products in this paper we consider the pricing and lot sizing problem for products with quality and physical quantity deteriorating simultaneously the deterioration rate of quality and physical quantity is taken to be time proportional the demand rate is assumed to be deterministic and dependent on the quality of an item the selling price per unit and the on display stock level the theory for finding the optimal solution of problem is discussed and numerical examples are used to illustrate the model and the solution procedure finally sensitivity analysis of the optimal solution with respect to price sensitive parameter and values of different deterioration functions is carried out

a new approach to measuring the rebound effect associated to energy efficiency improvements an application to the us residential energy demand this paper brings attention to the fact that the energy demand frontier model introduced by filippini and hunt 2011 2012 is closely connected to the measurement of the so called rebound effect associated with improvements in energy efficiency in particular we show that their model implicitly imposes a zero rebound effect which contradicts most of the available empirical evidence on this issue we relax this restrictive assumption through the modelling of a rebound effect function that mitigates or intensifies the effect of an efficiency improvement on energy consumption we illustrate our model with an empirical application that aims to estimate a us frontier residential aggregate energy demand function using panel data for 48 states over the period 1995 to 2011 average values of the rebound effect in the range of 56 80 are found therefore policymakers should be aware that most of the expected energy reduction from efficiency improvements may not be achieved

asymmetric price responses and the underlying energy demand trend are they substitutes or complements evidence from modelling oecd aggregate energy demand abstract a number of energy demand studies have considered the importance of modelling asymmetric price responses apr for example the often cited work of gately and huntington 2002 griffin and schulman 2005 questioned the asymmetric approach arguing that this is only capturing energy saving technical progress huntington 2006 however showed that for whole economy aggregate energy and oil demand there is a role statistically for both apr and exogenous energy saving technical change in a separate strand of the literature the idea of the underlying energy demand trend uedt has been developed see for example hunt et al 2003a and 2003b and dimitropoulos et al 2005 they argue that it is important in time series energy demand models to allow for stochastic trends or uedts based upon the structural time series dynamic regression methodology recommended by harvey 1989 1997 this paper attempts to bring these strands of the literature together by proposing a testing procedure for the uedt and apr in energy demand models within both a panel context consistent with the huntington 2006 approach and the structural time series modelling framework a set of tests across a range of specifications using time series and panel data are therefore suggested in order to try and ascertain whether energy saving technical change or the more general uedt and apr are substitutes for each other when modelling energy demand or whether they are actually picking up different influences and are therefore complements using annual whole economy data for 17 oecd countries over the period 1960 2006 the results suggest that for most of the countries the uedt is preferred to apr whereas for another group the uedt and apr are complements and for another group they are substitutes it is argued therefore that energy demand modellers should not assume at the outset that one method is superior to the other moreover wherever possible a general model be it in a time series or panel context that includes a non linear uedt and apr should be initially estimated and only if accepted by the data should symmetry and or a more restrictive uedt be imposed

firm heterogeneity persistent and transient technical inefficiency a generalized true random effects model this paper considers a panel data stochastic frontier model that disentangles unobserved firm effects firm heterogeneity from persistent time invariant long term and transient time varying short term technical inefficiency the model gives us a four way error component model viz persistent and time varying inefficiency random firm effects and noise we use bayesian methods of inference to provide robust and efficient methods of estimating inefficiency components in this four way error component model monte carlo results are provided to validate its performance we also present results from an empirical application that uses a large panel of us commercial banks

frontiers in the economics of energy efficiency abstract energy efficiency has become an essential instrument to obtain effective greenhouse gas mitigation and reduced energy dependence this introductory article contextualizes the contributions of the supplemental issue by showing the new setting for energy efficiency economics and policy discussing the role of price instruments to promote energy savings presenting new approaches for energy efficiency policies and placing energy efficiency within a wider energy and environmental framework

total factor energy efficiency of regions in china abstract this paper analyzes energy efficiencies of 29 administrative regions in china for the period 1995 2002 with a newly introduced index most existing studies of regional productivity and efficiency neglect energy inputs we use the data envelopment analysis dea to find the target energy input of each region in china at each particular year the index of total factor energy efficiency tfee then divides the target energy input by the actual energy input in our dea model labor capital stock energy consumption and total sown area of farm crops used as a proxy of biomass energy are the four inputs and real gdp is the single output the conventional energy productivity ratio regarded as a partial factor energy efficiency index is computed for comparison in contrast to tfee our index is found fitting better to the real case according to the tfee index rankings the central area of china has the worst energy efficiency and its total adjustmentof energy consumption amount is over half of china s total regional tfee in china generally improved during the research period except for the western area a u shape relation between the area s tfee and per capita income in the areas of china is found confirming the scenario that energy efficiency eventually improves with economic growth

an inventory model for deteriorating items with time proportional demand and shortages under inflation and time discounting this paper proposes a generalized dynamic programming model for inventory items with weibull distributed deterioration in this model the demand rate is assumed to be time proportional shortages are allowed and completely backordered and the effects of inflation and time value of money are taken into consideration the solutions of the model determine the optimal replenishment schedule over a finite planning horizon so that the present worth of total cost associated with the inventory system is minimized the proposed model permits variation in both the replenishment intervals and the service levels between order cycles as a result it generates a better solution than other optimization models having fixed order intervals and or fixed service levels the solution procedure is illustrated by two numerical examples and comparison with an existing model is carried out

econometric estimation of technical and environmental efficiency an application to dutch dairy farms in this article we estimate the technical and environmental efficiency of a panel of dutch dairy farms nitrogen surplus arising from the application of excessive amounts of manure and chemical fertilizer is treated as an environmentally detrimental input a stochastic translog production frontier is specified to estimate the output oriented technical efficiency environmental efficiency is estimated as the input oriented technical efficiency of a single input the nitrogen surplus of each farm the mean output oriented technical efficiency is rather high 0 894 but the mean input oriented environmental efficiency is only 0 441 intensive dairy farms are both technically and environmentally more efficient than extensive farms

economic ordering policy for deteriorating items over an infinite time horizon abstract in this paper a total cost model is presented for the inventory problem of deteriorating items a constant fraction of on hand inventory at the beginning of a period deteriorates during the period the demand for the items during a period is supplied at the end of the period however shortages accumulated during a scheduling period are supplied at the start of the next scheduling period an approach is suggested for determining economic ordering policy for the case of time varying demand and a search procedure is developed when demand is constant in each period

been top down so long it looks like bottom up to me abstract while technologists emphasize suboptimal choices by individuals and organizations many economists have ignored behavior exhibiting technical inefficiency this paper selectively discusses efforts by some economists to identify and measure technical inefficiency as applied to the energy efficiency gap bottom up economics would seek to measure significant departures from best practice technology distinguish between inefficiency that is more less wasteful of energy than other inputs and focus on developing testable hypotheses about technical inefficiency support for widespread intervention in energy use decisions may not necessarily follow from such an inquiry

underlying trends and seasonality in uk energy demand a sectoral analysis this paper demonstrates the importance for energy demand modelling of allowing for trends and seasonal effects that are stochastic in form inherent underlying trends may be non linear and reflect not only technical progress which usually produces greater energy efficiency but also other factors such as changes in consumer tastes and the economic structure that may be working in the opposite direction using quarterly unadjusted data for various sectors in the uk it is shown that unless energy demand models are formulated so as to allow for stochastic trends and seasonals estimates of price and income elasticities could be seriously biased

optimal inventory policies for perishable items with time dependent demand abstract this paper presents two computationally efficient solution methods that determine the optimal replenishment schedules for exponentially deteriorating items and perishable products with fixed lifetime for both models the inventoried items have general continuous time dependent demand the models are formulated under the assumption of discrete opportunities for replenishment over a fixed planning horizon numerical examples are included to illustrate the models

optimal dynamic pricing and replenishment cycle for non instantaneous deterioration items with inventory level dependent demand abstract this paper considers a problem of determining the optimal dynamic pricing strategy and replenishment cycle for non instantaneous deteriorating items where the consumer demand depends on the sales price and the quantity of the items displayed in the store for the given replenishment cycle we derive the optimal dynamic pricing strategy by applying pontryagin s maximum principle and then design an effective algorithm to obtain the optimal dynamic pricing strategy and replenishment cycle simultaneously numerical examples are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods and solution procedure furthermore sensitivity analysis of the key system parameters is carried out and some interesting managerial insights are presented

impact of energy policy instruments on the estimated level of underlying energy efficiency in the eu residential sector the promotion of energy efficiency is seen as one of the top priorities of eu energy policy ec 2010 in order to design and implement effective energy policy instruments it is necessary to have information on energy demand price and income elasticities in addition to sound indicators of energy efficiency this research combines the approaches taken in energy demand modelling and frontier analysis in order to econometrically estimate the level of energy efficiency for the residential sector in the eu 27 member states for the period 1996 to 2009 the estimates for the energy efficiency confirm that the eu residential sector indeed holds a relatively high potential for energy savings from reduced inefficiency therefore despite the common objective to decrease wasteful energy consumption considerable variation in energy efficiency between the eu member states is established furthermore an attempt is made to evaluate the impact of energy efficiency measures undertaken in the eu residential sector by introducing an additional set of variables into the model and the results suggest that financial incentives and energy performance standards play an important role in promoting energy efficiency improvements whereas informative measures do not have a significant impact

economic analysis of dynamic inventory models with non stationary costs and demand abstract with today s high rate of inflation observed in most world economies the accuracy of standard lot sizing models and their applicability to real inventory situations under inflationary conditions become questionable in this paper we have studied the effects of inflation and time value of money on the replenishment policies of items with time continuous non stationary demand over a finite planning horizon we have developed dynamic programming models for three commonly used replenishment policies in the inventory lot sizing literature with time varying demand and shortages in the case of linear time dependent demand we have performed a sensitivity analysis to investigate the impact of changing the system parameters on the present worth of the total cost of each of the three replenishment policies the results showed that the initial cycle length is virtually insensitive to the type of replenishment policy we have also extended the developed models to more practical inventory situations with exponentially deteriorating items and perishable products having fixed life time

the measurement of productive efficiency a reconsideration the purpose of this paper is to generalize the farrell indexes of productive efficiency to nonhomothetic production technologies and at the same time maintain the cost interpretation of the farrell measures since the generalized indexes rely heavily on recent developments in the estimation of frontier cost and production functions several frontier models are reviewed in addition to generalized indexes of technical allocative and overall productive efficiency a variety of single factor efficiency measures are discussed the applicability of the proposed efficiency measures is illustrated with a numerical example of electric power generation

measurement of energy efficiency based on economic foundations abstract energy efficiency policy is seen as a very important activity by almost all policy makers in practical energy policy analysis the typical indicator used as a proxy for energy efficiency is energy intensity however this simple indicator is not necessarily an accurate measure given changes in energy intensity are a function of changes in several factors as well as true energy efficiency hence it is difficult to make conclusions for energy policy based upon simple energy intensity measures related to this some published academic papers over the last few years have attempted to use empirical methods to measure the efficient use of energy based on the economic theory of production however these studies do not generally provide a systematic discussion of the theoretical basis nor the possible parametric empirical approaches that are available for estimating the level of energy efficiency the objective of this paper therefore is to sketch out and explain from an economic perspective the theoretical framework as well as the empirical methods for measuring the level of energy efficiency additionally in the second part of the paper some of the empirical studies that have attempted to measure energy efficiency using such an economics approach are summarized and discussed

an epq model of ramp type demand with weibull deterioration under inflation and finite horizon in crisp and fuzzy environment abstract this paper deals with an economic production model for deteriorating items with ramp type demand rate a single item is produced and the finite rate of production is proportional to the demand rate the deterioration rate of the item is taken as two parameter weibull s distribution we also have considered the effect of inflation when there is no shortage in the stock and the model is under finite time horizon the inventory model is solved under crisp and fuzzy environment to evaluate the optimum solution of the model in different cases we illustrate the model with an example by taking various number of replenishment we present sensitivity analysis to illustrate the example under crisp and fuzziness thus the objective of the paper is to find the optimal solution of production time so as to minimize the present value of total cost of the whole replenishment cycle and to check which environment crisp or fuzzy is desirable

an empirical analysis of energy intensity and the role of policy instruments abstract the reduction of energy intensity is important for sustainable economic growth especially in non oecd countries where energy demand growth is high understanding the impact of policies on energy intensity can help policy makers to reduce energy intensity using empirical methods and cross country data from 44 countries over the period 1990 2016 we study the determinants of energy intensity the common correlated effects mean group estimator is employed since it addresses nonstationarity cross sectional dependence and heterogeneity all three of which exist in the data both gdp per capita and economy wide energy prices are shown to be negatively associated with energy intensity the empirical results provide evidence that several policy instruments are effective in reducing energy intensity i standards and labeling ii government direct investment iii strategic planning and support iv fiscal measures taxes and v grants and subsidies the duration of the policy is more important than the mere existence of the policy in demonstrating the policy s effectiveness

the measurement and sources of technical inefficiency in the indonesian weaving industry production function models are estimated with a time series of cross section data on indonesian weaving establishments the sources of technical inefficiency are investigated three firm attributes are identified as being potentially related to firm efhciency tbey are firm ownership age and size the importance of these attributes as sources of inefficiency in the indonesian weaving industry is investigated and the implications of the find ings discussed

the energy efficiency gap what does it mean abstract as renewed attention has been given by policy makers to energy conservation issues it has frequently been asserted that an energy efficiency gap exists between actual and optimal energy use the critical questions is how to define the optimal level of energy efficiency this paper seeks to disentangle some confusing strands of argument that are frequently brought to bear on this question by identifying the major conceptual issues that determine the set of feasible answers we identify five separate and distinct notions of optimality the economists economic potential the technologists economic potential hypothetical potential the narrow social optimum and the true social optimum each of these has associated with it a corresponding definition of the energy efficiency gap our analysis demonstrates that necessary preconditions for identifying the right measure of the energy efficiency gap include understanding and disentangling market failure and non market failure explanations for the gradual diffusion of energy efficient technologies

economic efficiency and frontier techniques abstract most of the literature related to the measurement of economic efficiency has based its analysis either on parametric or on non parametric frontier methods the choice of estimation method has been an issue of debate with some researchers preferring the parametric and others the non parametric approach the aim of this paper is to provide a critical and detailed review of both core frontier methods in our opinion no approach is strictly preferable to any other moreover a careful consideration of their main advantages and disadvantages of the data set utilized and of the intrinsic characteristics of the framework under analysis will help us in the correct implementation of these techniques recent developments in frontier techniques and economic efficiency measurement such as bayesian techniques bootstrapping duality theory and the analysis of sampling asymptotic properties are also considered in this paper

estimating the potential for electricity savings in households abstract improving efficiency in the use of energy is an important goal for many nations since end use energy efficiency can help to reduce co 2 emissions furthermore since the residential sector in industrialised countries requires around one third of the end use electricity it is important for policy makers to estimate the scope for electricity saving in households to reduce electricity consumption by using appropriate steering mechanisms we estimate the level of technical efficiency in the use of electricity using data from a swiss household survey we find an average inefficiency in electricity use by swiss households of around 20 to 25 bottom up economic engineering models estimate the potential in switzerland to be around 15 in this paper we use a sub vector input distance frontier function based on economic foundations our estimates lie at the upper end of the electricity saving potential estimated by the afore mentioned economic engineering approach

deconstructing the rosenfeld curve making sense of california s low electricity intensity abstract regulatory regimes that have increased household energy efficiency are of widespread interest to policymakers today a prominent example is the state of california where electricity intensities in the residential sector have stayed near constant since the 1970s in sharp contrast to nationwide trends in the united states a structural model of residential energy consumption is used to show that the use of energy intensities alone to evaluate the success of california efficiency programs is misleading and glosses over important policy independent factors we quantify important effects of price climate conditions and demographic characteristics on energy consumption in california we also provide evidence of split incentive considerations in residential energy consumption patterns we conclude that while state policy may have had some effect on efficiency caution needs to be exercised in using the california example to inform expectations from similar measures in other regions

testing the cross section implications of friedman s permanent income hypothesis abstract we use modern household data and econometric methods to conduct some of the original tests of the permanent income hypothesis pih suggested and used by friedman 1957 a theory of the consumption function princeton university press princeton the data and methods are superior to those available to friedman allowing us to refine friedman s tests and perform tests he could not do the results provide overall though not universal support for pih