A Stochastic Frontier Analysis of Output Level and Growth in Poland and Western Economies

This paper uses Bayesian stochastic frontier methods to measure the productivity gap between Poland and Western countries that existed before the beginning of the main Polish economic reform. Using data for 20 Western economies, Poland and Yugoslavia (1980–1990) we estimate a translog stochastic frontier and make inference about individual efficiencies. Following the methodology proposed in our earlier work, we also decompose output growth into technical, efficiency and input changes and examine patterns of growth in the period under consideration. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.