 Evaluating the water sector in Italy through a two stage method using the conditional robust nonparametric frontier and multivariate adaptive regression splinesEuropean Journal of Operational Research, 2011, vol. 212, issue 3, 583-595 Abstract: The aim of this paper is to assess the efficiency of the integrated water service in Italy in recent years, through a robust and flexible methodology. This paper, from a methodological point of view, enhances a "two stage" method, based on ideas suggested by Florens and Simar (2005), which estimates the efficiency frontier through conditional robust models and bypasses, at the same time, the choice of a specific functional form in the second stage; the MARS (Multivariate Adaptive Regression splines) method, in fact, provides for approximate production function using linear splines without any assumption of a functional form. Applying this specific two stage method, despite poor assumptions of the production function form, we provide an estimate for the Italian water companies; we have found spatial and dimensional patterns, especially in metropolitan vs. low density areas. Keywords: Productive; frontier; efficiency; Conditional; oder-m; efficiency; Two; stage; methods; Multivariate; adaptive; regression; splines; Water; sector (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ejores:v:212:y:2011:i:3:p:583-595 Access Statistics for this article European Journal of Operational Research is currently edited by Roman Slowinski, Jesus Artalejo, Jean-Charles. Billaut, Robert Dyson and Lorenzo Peccati More articles in European Journal of Operational Research from Elsevier |
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