Distributions Of Efficiency Scores Research Articles

Performance assessment on technology transition from small businesses to the U.S. Department of Defense

While there is a plethora of literature on overall innovation or technology transfer (or spin-out), there is a paucity of studies on technology transition (or spin-in). This study fills the gap in the existing literature by assessing the technology transition performance of 252 small firms that have won the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II awards from 2001 to 2010 and have filed more than 15 patents (“elite DoD SBIR awardees”) and by exploring how social capital is associated with the performance. To attain the purpose, we propose the use of data envelopment analysis with a time lag, which incorporates two-stage production processes, and apply a non-parametric test (i.e., Kruskal-Wallis) to examine the statistical relationship between social capital measures, such as network centrality and technological distance, and the technology transition performance. Our findings are two folds: (a) more than a quarter of the elite DoD SBIR awardees are efficient and the distribution of efficiency scores is left-skewed and (b) the technology transition performance has a negatively linear relationship with technological distance but a U-shaped relationship with network position measures (e.g., eigenvector centrality).

To participate or not to participate: research and development project funding and the efficiency in the case of the European Unions micro- and nano-systems program

As anticipated and substantiated by applying the most appropriate model, the results did not confirm the findings of Naveh (2005), showing a positive association with initial product development and efficiency (change). Panel data on three inputs (project income, employees and total assets) and one output (sales) were applied to investigate the impact of these inputs and output on the efficiency, technology, and productivity indices. Comparable firms participating in the FP6-IST micro- and nano-systems program group outperform firms that are not participating in this group in terms of efficiency change. No statistical tests reject the null hypothesis that the two groups have the same efficiency change. Based on efficiency characteristics for 2001 (comparisons of efficiency between two different systems and bilateral comparisons). The comparisons of efficiency between two different systems tests do not reject the hypothesis that the two groups belong to the same population. For bilateral comparisons, the null hypothesis is rejected that the two groups have the same distribution of efficiency scores. Findings suggest the presence of inefficiency effects for both - participating and non-participating - FP6-IST groups.

Assessing the efficiency of private sector banks in India: an empirical investigation using data envelope analysis

The present study looks into the technical efficiency of private banks in India for the years 2015-2016 to 2018-2019 using Data Envelopment Approach. The findings are based on three inputs, two outputs models under the assumption of a constant return scale. According to the Shapiro Wilk test, the test for normality shows that the distribution of efficiency scores follows a normal distribution. Further, the Friedman test reveals that there is a significant difference in efficiency scores between the four years. To get a more specific result by a pair-wise combination, Wilcoxon signed-rank test is applied. The Spearman rank correlation is tested to know the correlation between ranks according to business size and rank according to technical efficiency score. The overall analysis shows the dominant big private banks are efficient and with higher technical efficiency scores. The findings are interesting and also point to the scope of improvement for the different banks with low-efficiency scores.

Assessing efficiency of private sector banks in India: an empirical investigation using DEA

The present study looks into the technical efficiency of private banks in India for the years 2015-2016 to 2018-2019 using Data Envelopment Approach. The findings are based on three inputs, two outputs models under the assumption of a constant return scale. According to the Shapiro Wilk test, the test for normality shows that the distribution of efficiency scores follows a normal distribution. Further, the Friedman test reveals that there is a significant difference in efficiency scores between the four years. To get a more specific result by a pair-wise combination, Wilcoxon signed-rank test is applied. The Spearman rank correlation is tested to know the correlation between ranks according to business size and rank according to technical efficiency score. The overall analysis shows the dominant big private banks are efficient and with higher technical efficiency scores. The findings are interesting and also point to the scope of improvement for the different banks with low-efficiency scores.

Portuguese regional innovation systems efficiency in the European Union context

ABSTRACT Current evidence on European regional innovation systems efficiency shows some conflicting results. Whereas some studies find support to a core-periphery distribution of efficiency, others find that lagging regions can be as well or even more efficient than rich regions in using their resources. This paper contributes to this debatable topic by providing additional evidence on the main determinants of the region's innovation efficiency and on efficiency differentials across EU regional innovation systems. Using data from 206 European regions and applying a stochastic production frontier methodology, our results corroborate the importance of interactions among regional agents on the region's efficiency score. More importantly, the distribution of efficiency scores across regional innovation systems does not entirely confirm the core-periphery divide among European regions. Instead, the mode of doing innovation appears to be a crucial explanatory factor of innovation efficiency at regional level. In the case of Portuguese regional innovation systems, they perform slightly below the average of their EU counterparts, except Lisbon's, and appear to be constrained by their mode of doing innovation.

Efficiency assessment using a multidirectional DDF approach

AbstractThis paper proposes a new efficiency measure that aims at capturing the overall distance to the efficient frontier and not the distance corresponding to a specific projection, as most oriented and non‐oriented methods compute. The proposed approach uses a grid‐based method to sample all possible improvement directions from a given operating point and for each direction it computes a directional efficiency score solving a directional distance function model. This provides information about the distribution of the distance to the efficient frontier. Therefore, the proposed multidirectional efficiency measure does not provide a single efficiency score but a distribution of efficiency scores. The minimum, the median, the Q1 and Q3 quartiles and the maximum can be singled out as representatives of that distribution. The latter corresponds to the closest among the computed efficient targets. In addition to the efficiency score distribution, the associated efficient targets are also provided. The proposed approach can take into account integer and nondiscretionary variables and a preference structure. An application of the method to assess the efficiency of material recovery facilities is presented.

Severity of illness in the case-mix specification and performance: A study for Italian public hospitals

Background: Public hospitals’ expenditures in Italy is approximately 45% of total public health financing. The reduction of public debt requires reducing total public health, as well as hospital expenditures in the public sector. Past health reforms introduced rules to improve the efficiency in controlling hospital costs with a better use of resources. The objective of this study is to derive technical efficiency as a performance measurement in the directly managed public hospitals in Italy under different case-mix specifications, as well as to discover the effect of it on technical efficiency. Methods: Two different Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) models are solved. To control for the influence of the case-mix complexity/severity of illness on technical efficiency, the distributions of DEA efficiency scores are compared applying statistical tests developed in the non-parametric efficiency analysis. Results: On average, in the year 2007, the technical efficiency in the sample is lower (0.8071) in model B (output mix with weighted Case Mix Index) than in model A (0.8748). The bootstrap-corrected efficiency scores of models B and A are respectively 0.7185 and 0.8106. On average, the case mix index in the sample is 0.87859. Statistical tests confirm that the differences in the efficiency scores distribution are statistically significant, confirming that treatment complexity has influenced technical efficiency. At the individual hospital level, the effect is more evident, modifying the rank and the technical efficiency of the hospitals. Conclusions: The different case-mix specifications adjusted with Case Mix Index, generate statistically significant differences in the distribution of the efficiency scores. This evidence permits us to conclude that the performance of the Local Health Trust’s directly managed public Italian hospitals is influenced by the hospitals’ case-mix severity/complexity. As a policy indication, we can observe that the need for policy makers and hospital managers to reduce hospital costs conflicts with the need to guarantee an optimum level of hospital resources with different case-mix complexities of the treated cases.

On estimating the distribution of data envelopment analysis efficiency scores: an application to nursing homes’ care planning process

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a deterministic econometric model for calculating efficiency by using data from an observed set of decision-making units (DMUs). We propose a method for calculating the distribution of efficiency scores. Our framework relies on estimating data from an unobserved set of DMUs. The model provides posterior predictive data for the unobserved DMUs to augment the frontier in the DEA that provides a posterior predictive distribution for the efficiency scores. We explore the method on a multiple-input and multiple-output DEA model. The data for the example are from a comprehensive examination of how nursing homes complete a standardized mandatory assessment of residents.

Efficiency in the provision of public services: a data envelopment analysis of UK public library systems

This study assesses the relative efficiency of public library services by examining the relationship between library inputs and library outputs in multi-outlet library systems. Differences in the size of the area and population served are reflected in differences in the number of outlets and mix of outlet types. Using a Data Envelopment Analysis, which controls for the accessibility of library resources, this study derives technical and overall efficiency scores for 99 UK Public Library Systems. The data are survey observations for 1995/1996. Over the decade leading up to the survey, library services had been subject to a protracted period of budget restraint and contraction in most areas of activity. The distribution of efficiency scores is skewed, implying that although many library systems are efficient or near-efficient, there is a tail of inefficient operations. Inefficiency is mainly, but not exclusively associated with over subscription to serial publications. Many library systems are scale inefficient, operating under conditions of increasing returns to scale. Reorganization of the service may be required if greater efficiency is to be achieved.

Distance vs. Ray Functions: An Application to the Inshore Fishery of Greece

The objective of this paper is to compare the empirical results from two alternative representations of a stochastic multi-output technology using trip-level data of the inshore fleet in Greece. The comparisons involve technical efficiency scores, structure of the underlying technology, and technical efficiency determinants. The stochastic multi-output distance function and the stochastic ray production function indicate the same technology structure, which is non-separable in inputs and outputs, non-homothetic in inputs, and exhibits increasing returns to scale. The relative rankings of efficiency scores are very similar. The distributions of efficiency scores, however, are different, and the ray production frontier yields systematically lower technical inefficiency levels than the multi-output distance function.

Bank Cost Efficiency and Output Specification

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 scores yielded by two output specifications, one mainly identified with the asset approach and the other which also considers deposits as output. Results show that distributions of efficiency scores, estimated nonparametrically by means of kernel smoothing, vary greatly. In addition, firms' positions relative to the mean change according to either output definition, and results do not remain constant over time.