Malmquist indexes with quasi-fixed inputs: an application to school districts in Québec

In a non-market environment, there is no pressure coming from competitors that leads firms toward efficiency. Public education system is the target of many critiques as being such an example of inefficiency. Some papers attempted to measure the level of inefficiency of schools or school districts using different methods. Unfortunately, those methods do not include an important aspect of the school management that is characterized by the incapacity to adjust some inputs like buildings and equipment to their optimal level. In this paper, we use a generalization of Malmquist indexes that introduces this lack of flexibility in the measurement of productivity and we apply this method in the case of school districts in the Province of Québec (Canada). JEL classification: I1, D2.