Technical efficiency in small and medium-sized firms in Mexico: A stochastic frontier analysis/Eficiencia técnica en pequeñas y medianas empresas en México: un análisis de frontera estocástica

Saúl Basurto Hernández and Gabriela Sánchez Trujillo
Additional contact information
Saúl Basurto Hernández: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Gabriela Sánchez Trujillo: Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Hidalgo

Estudios Económicos, 2022, vol. 37, issue 1, 103-147

Abstract: This paper examines the knowledge-technical efficiency (TE) association in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) of manufacturing, trade, and service sectors. We use data from 2014 and 2017 reported by 28,034 SMEs in the National Survey on Productivity and Competitiveness of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (Encuesta Nacional sobre Productividad y Competitividad de las Micro, Pequeñas y Medianas Empresas, ENAPROCE) and the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA). The main findings suggest that the average technical efficiency (ATE) of SMEs is 54.6%, SMEs show decreasing returns to scale, and SMEs with highly skilled workers -that transfer their technology less frequently and that use the Internet in their production processes- tend to have higher levels of TE. On the other hand, those firms that spend a higher proportion of their revenues on the process of paying taxes tend to be less efficient than others.

Keywords: technical efficiency; stochastic frontier; knowledge; technology; human capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D22 D83 L25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://estudioseconomicos.colmex.mx/index.php/economicos/article/view/427 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:emx:esteco:v:37:y:2022:i:1:p:103-147

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Estudios Económicos from El Colegio de México, Centro de Estudios Económicos Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ximena Varela ().