Hammerstein-Wiener systems present a structure consisting of three serial cascade blocks. Two are static nonlinearities, which can be described with nonlinear functions. The third block represents linear dynamic component placed between the first two Some common model structures include rational-type transfer function, orthogonal rational functions (ORF), finite impulse response (FIR), autoregr...

Starting in the 1970’s, the Brazilian agricultural sector has experienced an important process of modernization, whose principal effects include advances in technological progress and gains in productivity. The primary objective of this paper is to analyze technological progress and total productivity growth in the Brazilian agricultural sector during the period from 1970 to 1996. The methodolo...

In this paper, the bootstrapping Malmquist index is used to derive the productivity levels of Iranian steam power plants for the period of 2007e2012. The research shows that the average level of productivity has significantly decreased. It was also indicated that technological changes have had more effects on productivity than efficiency changes. To study the influence of various explanatory fa...

This paper uses a new non-parametric, unconditional, hyperbolic order-α quantile estimator to construct a hyperbolic version of the Malmquist index. Unlike traditional non-parametric efficiency estimators, the new estimator is both robust to data outliers and has a root-n convergence rate. We use this estimator to examine changes in the efficiency and productivity of U.S. banks between 1985 and...

The main challenge for sustainable development of resource cities is to work out a feasible strategy for transformation processes. This paper introduces a new approach for analysis of transformation performance. Using the environmental production technology and a Malmquist resource performance index (MRPI), we conduct σ , absolute β and conditional β convergence tests for the transformation per...

In some data envelopment analysis (DEA) applications, some inputs of DMUs have negative values with positive cost. This paper generalizes the global cost Malmquist productivity index to compare the productivity of different DMUs with negative inputs in any two periods of times under variable returns to scale (VRS) technology, and then the generalized index is decomposed to several components. T...

This paper uses the Luenberger productivity index to evaluate the productivity changes of Greek Life insurance companies between 1994 and 2003, combining operational and financial variables. It is found that the average annual productivity change was about 19% and was due to technological progress, whereas the impact of efficiency was minimal. It seems that deregulation, established by the Thir...