A supply chain is a set of suppliers, manufactures and distributors, which are linked together. The first chain is a supplier and the last one is customers. What is the most important in supply chain are highquality products by the least cost and the most benefit. In this regard, each input and output and intermediate have unit price and unit cost information. The cost-minimization and the prof...

This study investigates the profit efficiency (PROFEFF) of small banks (those under $500 million in total assets) for 1990–96. Assuming that small banks and large banks use the same production technology, we find, consistent with Berger and Mester [J. Bank. Finance 21 (1997) 875], that small banks are more profit efficient than large banks. Small banks in non-metropolitan statistical areas (non...

In the literature of strategic management, most of the research on profitability focuses on conditions under which a firm can enjoy extraordinary profits in the long run, despite the efforts of its competitors. This paper extends this line of thinking by considering not only the role played by idiosyncratic resources in the final equilibrium, but also the dynamic process by which the sector app...

This paper investigates how hospital affiliation in a multi-hospital system (contract managed, owned, sponsored), the number of system hospitals, HMO and PPO contracts, and other factors, impacts hospital cost efficiency. Using a 1996-1999 panel of 248 hospitals, results show that for urban hospitals, increasing the number of hospitals in the system, system ownership and contract management/spo...

This paper develops a slack-based decomposition of profit efficiency based on a directional distance function.

In contrast to the U.S. where universal banking has been legally prohibited, the Second Banking Directive allows European banks both to form financial conglomerates and hold equity stakes in non-financial companies. This paper analyzes the cost and profit efficiency of European financial conglomerates and universal banks. We find that conglomerates are more revenue efficient than their speciali...