Returns to scale
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Economics of Agglomeration Open
Despite the drop in transport and commuting costs since the mid-19th century, sizable and lasting differences across locations at very different spatial scales remain the most striking feature of the space-economy. The main challenges of t…
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Misallocation in the Market for Inputs: Enforcement and the Organization of Production* Open
The strength of contract enforcement determines how firms source inputs and organize production. Using microdata on Indian manufacturing plants, we show that production and sourcing decisions appear systematically distorted in states with …
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The Changing Structure of American Innovation: Some Cautionary Remarks for Economic Growth Open
A defining feature of modern economic growth is the systematic application of science to advance technology. However, despite sustained progress in scientific knowledge, recent productivity growth in the United States has been disappointin…
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How Much Does Size Erode Mutual Fund Performance? A Regression Discontinuity Approach Open
The level of diseconomies of scale in asset management has important implications for tests of manager skill and the expected level of performance persistence. To identify the causal impact of fund size on future returns, we exploit the fa…
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A window-DEA based efficiency evaluation of the public hospital sector in Greece during the 5-year economic crisis Open
The main objective of this study was to apply the non-parametric method of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to measure the efficiency of Greek NHS hospitals between 2009-2013. Hospitals were divided into four separate groups with common cha…
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Estimation of potential gains from bank mergers: A novel two-stage cost efficiency DEA model Open
This paper develops a novel two-stage cost efficiency model to estimate and decompose the potential gains from Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As). In this model, a hypothetical DMU is defined as a combination of two or more candidate DMUs. Th…
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A DEA study of airlines in India Open
The objective of this study is to investigate the technical and scale efficiencies of all airlines across service type, size and ownership structures operating in India during 2006–2010. The variable returns to scale (VRS) model of Data En…
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Measuring Tourism Efficiency of European Countries by Using Data Envelopment Analysis Open
This study aims to measure relative efficiency of 29 European countries with the data of the year 2013 using input-oriented and constant returns to scale Data Envelopment Analysis and to offer improvement suggestions for the countries foun…
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Adoption of organic soil amendments and its impact on farm performance: evidence from wheat farmers in China* Open
This study examines the determinants of adoption of organic soil amendments (OSAs) such as organic fertiliser and farmyard manure and its impact on crop yields and net returns, using household survey data of 558 wheat farmers in China. We …
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Marginal Values and Returns to Scale for Nonparametric Production Frontiers Open
We present a unifying linear programming approach to the calculation of various directional derivatives for a very large class of production frontiers of data envelopment analysis (DEA). Special cases of this include different marginal rat…
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How does green finance affect the low-carbon economy? Capital allocation, green technology innovation and industry structure perspectives Open
The development of green finance and social low-carbon transformation is an essential concern for academia and industry. Based on Chinese provincial panel data spanning the period 2005–2019, we introduce the Cobb-Douglas production functio…
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Exogenous and Endogenous Growth Models: a Critical Review Open
The main divisions of the theoretical economic growth literature that we study today include exogenous and endogenous growth models that have transitioned through a number of notions and criticisms. Proponents of exogenous growth models ar…
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Efficiency evaluation of public hospitals in Saudi Arabia: an application of data envelopment analysis Open
Objective In this study, we assess the performance of public hospitals in Saudi Arabia. We detect the sources of inefficiency and estimate the optimal levels of the resources that provide the current level of health services. We enrich our…
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Trade-offs in managing commercial consumer returns for online apparel retail Open
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how online apparel retailers make trade-offs in achieving efficiency in handling consumer returns, attempting to reduce the number of consumer returns they are faced with and increasing…
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Data envelopment analysis for analyzing technical efficiency in aquaculture: The bootstrap methods Open
The paper adopts the bootstrap procedures for data envelopment analysis to analyze the technical efficiency in the Vietnam’s intensive white-leg shrimp farming. The results demonstrate that the null hypothesis of constant returns-to-scale …
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Learning from the Joneses: Technology spillover, innovation externality, and stock returns Open
This paper provides empirical evidence for the role of technology spillover, an important innovation externality, in asset pricing. Using patent and R&D data, I show that firms with more technology spillover earn 7.7% higher annualized ret…
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Skills, division of labour and economies of scale among Amazonian hunters and South Indian honey collectors Open
In foraging and other productive activities, individuals make choices regarding whether and with whom to cooperate, and in what capacities. The size and composition of cooperative groups can be understood as a self-organized outcome of the…
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Optimization of energy consumption of dairy farms using data envelopment analysis – A case study: Qazvin city of Iran Open
The aim of this study was to use the data envelopment analysis for determining the energy efficiency and find the optimum energy consumption in dairy farms of Qazvin city of Iran. In this study have been used from two approaches constant r…
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On the Returns to Invention within Firms: Evidence from Finland Open
In this paper we merge individual income data, firm-level data, patenting data, and IQ data in Finland over the period 1988-2012 to analyze the returns to invention for inventors and their coworkers or stakeholders within the same firm. We…
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Measuring technical efficiency of potato production in Iran using robust data envelopment analysis Open
A non-parametric method of data envelopment analysis (DEA) was applied to analyze the technical and scale efficiency of potato production in 23 Iranian provinces. In many real applications, inputs and outputs may be imprecise. In the prese…
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Do Mutual Funds Have Decreasing Returns to Scale? Evidence from Fund Mergers Open
Using mergers as shocks to fund size, I analyze the return-to-scale property of mutual funds. I find that acquiring funds’ performance deteriorates after experiencing a positive shock in size resulting from mergers, and liquidity plays an …
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Stronger together? Assessing the causal effect of inter‐municipal cooperation on the efficiency of small Italian municipalities Open
When local governments are small and fragmented, promoting inter‐municipal cooperation (IMC) among them is seen as a tool to improve the management of public services by reaping economies of scale and scope. Yet, the empirical evidence on …
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Hospital Efficiency Measurement Before and After Health Sector Evolution Plan in Southwest of Iran: a DEA-Panel Data Study Open
The results showed that efficiency of selected public hospitals was the poor. Technical efficiency and managerial efficiency were lower than scale efficiency rate. Also, Multi- specialized hospitals were in critical status considering reso…
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Verdoorn’s law and productivity dynamics: An empirical investigation into the demand and supply approaches Open
According to Verdoorn’s law, productivity growth is endogenous to output growth, due to the existence of increasing returns to scale, broadly defined. Such an idea is at the root of both the endogenous growth theory and the Kaldorian appro…
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Data Envelopment Analysis: A Tool of Measuring Efficiency in Banking Sector Open
The present paper examined the review of literature related to measuring relative efficiency of banks using data envelopment analysis (DEA). The efficiency of banks is measure through the ability of the individual bank to maximise output g…
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Do the Usual Results of Railway Returns to Scale and Density Hold in the Case of Heterogeneity in Outputs? A Hedonic Cost Function Approach Open
This paper highlights the importance of modelling the interaction between returns to scale/density and heterogeneity of services when evaluating optimal size and structure of passenger rail operations. We propose and estimate a hedonic cos…
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Double Penalty in Returns to Education: Informality and Educational Mismatch in the Colombian Labour Market Open
This article examines the returns to education taking into consideration the existence of educational mismatches in the formal and informal employment of a developing country. Results show that the returns of surplus, required and deficit …
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Ecoefficiency of Intensive Agricultural Production and Its Influencing Factors in China: An Application of DEA‐Tobit Analysis Open
The excessive use of inputs per unit of agricultural land poses a great threat to ecological sustainability. Using an input‐oriented data envelopment analysis (DEA) model, this study analyzes ecoefficiency of intensive agricultural product…
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The Efficiency of R&D Expenditures in ASEAN Countries Open
The aim of this study is to determine whether funds spent on research and development are used efficiently in Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries. Fifteen countries in the 2000-2016 period have been examined. Measuring…
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Performance of Financial Expenditure in China's basic science and math education: Panel Data Analysis Based on CCR Model and BBC Model Open
Basic education plays the fundamental and leading role in the national education system. Strengthening and optimizing the allocation of resources in basic education and improving the performance of fiscal expenditure on basic education has…