Measuring Inefficiency in Public Utilities: Does the Distribution Matter?

Martín Rossi and Iván Canay
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Iván Canay: Universidad Argntina de la Empresa

No 12_2001, UADE Working Papers from Instituto de Economía, Universidad Argentina de la Empresa

Abstract: In this paper we describe two of the most used distributions for the inefficiency term in a stochastic frontier: the Half Normal and the Exponential distributions. We then show that both distributions affect the skewness of the composite error term in different ways, which make the Exponential distribution more inclined to identifying a larger number of efficient firms. In order to check these results we perform MOLS and ML, using four databases already used in previous work. We find that the mean efficiency is sensitive to the assumed distribution. In all cases we corroborate that the Exponential distribution identifies a larger number of efficient firms than the Half Normal, as the theory predicted. However, the rankings of firms by efficiency scores were not affected by the choice of distribution.

Keywords: stochastic frontier; efficiency; distribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L50 L90 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2001-05-01
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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