Frontier techniques, including data envelopment analysis (DEA) and stochastic frontier analysis (SFA), have been used to measure health care provider efficiency in hundreds of published studies. Although these methods have the potential to be useful to decision makers, their utility is limited by both methodological questions concerning their application, as well as some disconnect between the ...

This paper takes issues with the appropriateness of applying the stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) technique to account for environmental effects and statistical noise in the popular three-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA). A correctly specified SFA model with a censored dependent variable and the associated maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) are proposed. The simulations show that the fi...

This paper presents an analysis of technical efficiency and technology gap ratio (TGR) in greenhouse cucumber in Fars Province, Iran. Cucumber production was chosen for this study for the reason that greenhouse productions in this provincemainly have focused on this product. The data used in this study was obtained from a random sample of 127 greenhouses in Fars Province for 2010 to 2011. Metaf...

The field of productive efficiency analysis is currently divided between two main paradigms: the deterministic, nonparametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and the parametric Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA). This paper examines an encompassing semiparametric frontier model that combines the DEA-type nonparametric frontier, which satisfies monotonicity and concavity, with the SFA-style stoc...

The study was carried out to provide empirical evidence on technical efficiency of maize production in Nigeria using parametric and non-parametric approaches. The study employed annual secondary data on maize production in Nigeria from 1971 to 2010.Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) were used to estimate the technical efficiency of maize production. The resul...

The car manufacturing industry, one of the largest energy consuming industries, has been making a considerable effort to improve its energy intensity by implementing energy efficiency programs, in many cases supported by government research or financial programs. While many car manufacturers claim that they have made substantial progress in energy efficiency improvement over the past years thro...

This paper evaluates a more integrated approach of regulation when doing international comparisons and represents the first cross-country study in the South American region in which quality and weather variables have been included in the analysis. A total of 82 electricity distribution firms operating in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru have been analysed for the period 1998-2008. Stochastic f...

This article introduces a dynamic stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) framework with unobserved heterogeneity, persistent and transient inefficiency effects, based on recent advances in the SFA literature. The newly developed model is applied sample of French crop-livestock farms. estimates provide useful insights for estimation technical efficiency scores as well associations contextual drivers...

Abstract We introduce methods to apply stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) financial assets as an alternative data envelopment analysis, because SFA allows us fit a with noisy data. In contrast conventional SFA, we wish deal estimation risk, heteroscedasticity in noise and inefficiency terms. investigate measurement error the risk return measures using simulation–extrapolation method develop res...