Radial and nonradial measures of technical efficiency: An empirical illustration for Belgian local governments using an FDH reference technology

This paper serves two purposes. First, we argue that radial efficiency measures are inappropriate for the Free Disposal Hull (FDH) technology, and we provide a comparative analysis of alternative nonradial measures. In particular, using information on Belgian local government expenditures and output indicators we implement various radial and nonradial measures on the FDH reference technology, and we investigate to which extent these efficiency measures imply different distributions and rankings. Second, we analyze the patterns of measured technical efficiency implied by the various indices. Specifically, we investigate whether different measures make any substantial difference for the explanation of the calculated inefficiencies. The empirical results suggest that more important differences in rankings exist between radial and nonradial measures than between different nonradial alternatives; moreover, the radial and the nonradial efficiency measures do yield a somewhat different pattern of explanation.This is a revision of a paper presented at the 38th Conference of the Applied Econometrics Association in Athens (April 12–13, 1993). Comments of R. Goudriaan, Henry Tulkens, and two anonymous referees are gratefully acknowledged.     

The importance of efficient use in the adoption of technology: A micro panel data analysis

Even after the introduction of the new rice technology (Green revolution) about more than two decades ago, the food shortage problem has not decreased significantly in many developing countries. Obviously, there can be no dispute over the importance of the new rice technology in bringing about improvements in agricultural productivity. But, there are factors other than the choice of technology which are equally important, and a neglect of these factors may lead to a complete negation of any possible gains in productivity arising from the use of new technology. One such factor is the efficient use of the technology. This paper examines farm-specific application of the new rice technology by using a micro-level panel data from a South Indian district. The results show a wide variation in the efficient use of the technology by the sample farmers. Extension and education were identified as two major constraining factors.The refereeing process of this paper was handled through N.R. Adam.     

双液帷幕注浆在流砂层中的应用

采用双液帷幕注浆可解决在渗透系数大、承压水头高的地层中进行基坑施工所面临开挖困难的问题。对不同地层进行双液帷幕浆均能取得增加强度、明显减小渗透系数的工程效果。文章结合工程实例论述了帷幕注浆的设计要点、施工工艺及其止水效果。     

How to improve the performances of DEA/FDH estimators in the presence of noise?

In frontier analysis, most nonparametric approaches (DEA, FDH) are based on envelopment ideas which assume that with probability one, all observed units belong to the attainable set. In these “deterministic” frontier models, statistical inference is now possible, by using bootstrap procedures. In the presence of noise, envelopment estimators could behave dramatically since they are very sensitive to extreme observations that might result only from noise. DEA/FDH techniques would provide estimators with an error of the order of the standard deviation of the noise. This paper adapts some recent results on detecting change points [Hall P, Simar L (2002) J Am Stat Assoc 97:523–534] to improve the performances of the classical DEA/FDH estimators in the presence of noise. We show by simulated examples that the procedure works well, and better than the standard DEA/FDH estimators, when the noise is of moderate size in term of signal to noise ratio. It turns out that the procedure is also robust to outliers. The paper can be seen as a first attempt to formalize stochastic DEA/FDH estimators.      

信息化——世界500强跨国开拓的利器

经济信息化,特别是管理信息化大大扫清了企业跨国营销的时间与空间障碍,世界500强竞相运用先进的信息化管理手段,凭借其巨额资产、庞大的生产规模,着眼全球资源和市场,把融资、研发、零部件生产、总装、会计、培训等各种业务放到能最好实现其发展战略的国际市场。信息化成了世界500强跨国开拓和营销的利器。■信息化提高管理水平信息化降低了因距离和时间而造成的成本,不仅把人们从时空的制约中解放出来,而且还从受限于时空的管理方式中解脱出来,从根本上改变了传统的企业管理模式,它已成为企业增强活力与竞争力的关键因素。市场化程度高、…     

灰色情景法在智能交通技术发展规划中的应用

文章以智能交通的技术发展规划为研究主题,选择ATIS为研究对象,运用情景分析,结合改良灰色统计法来选择该系统需优先发展的相关技术。通过构建情境、分析样本资料,从多个备选方案中确定了需优先发展的技术,其研究成果可用于国内在智能交通技术规划的参考。     

Indivisible commodities and an equivalence theorem on the strong core

We consider a pure exchange economy with finitely many indivisible commodities that are available only in integer quantities. We prove that in such an economy with a sufficiently large number of agents, but finitely many agents, the strong core coincides with the set of expenditure-minimizing Walrasian allocations. Because of the indivisibility, the preference maximization does not imply the expenditure minimization. An expenditure-minimizing Walrasian equilibrium is a state where, under some price vector, all agents satisfy both the preference maximization and the expenditure minimization.     

The mean-standard deviation efficient set theorem: A note

This note is concerned with the proof of a revised version of the mean-standard deviation efficient set theorem. Given only risky securities, it is irrational to hold the global boundary portfolio, whereas when a riskless security exists a finitely risk-averse investor does not invest exclusively in such a security.     

Wage bargaining as an optimal control problem: a dynamic version of the efficient bargaining model

Decisions in Economics and Finance - In this paper, I develop a dynamic version of the efficient bargaining model grounded on optimal control in which a firm and a union bargain over the wage in a...     

The production network: An efficient tool in modelling territorial development plans

A rational distribution of productive forces on a country's territory is directly reflected in the saving of social labour, with all its well-known advantages. When one considers this, the importance of modelling territorial forecasts as realistically as possible becomes obvious. Modelling and optimizing a forecast can be done by means of the production network.Technical Economic Aspects. By territorial production network the authors of this paper mean a unitary system of manufacturing centres, in a given industrial sub-branch, which find themselves in a permanently interconditioning position and are distributed throughout the country in such a way that, on the sale of national economy, there should exist a minimum effort of social labour (materialised in investment outlay and in production and circulation expenditure) for meetong home requirements of productive and non-productive consumption and for providing efficient exports. The minimization of the social labour effort constitutes the criterion function of the model.Social Political Aspects. The optimum solution for the sub-branch might not always be adopted on the scale of national economy. This would happen since, in the process of optimizing the production network for each individual industry, a great number of optimal locations might be concentrated at a limited number of geographical points, thus generating territorial disparities in the economy as a whole. To prevent this happening, it becomes necessary, after determining from the economic standpoint the best production network for all industrial sub-branches, to find a rational way of socially harmonizing the people's material and cultural standards in all the various areas of the country. One might, for instance, harmonize the inter-zonal net industrial output per capita, since the net output represents in fact the added value created in the social process of extended reproduction.A solution to this problem will secure an efficient dynamic equilibrium of the industrial output potential between the various areas of a country and per successive plan stages and, implicitly, a faster rise in living standards for the population in the economically less developed areas.     

An impulse-control method for investment decisions in dynamic technology

This paper presents a new framework to augment standard methods in evaluating profitability of investments, especially those involved in dynamic technology. In this case there is a possibility that although a certain investment is profitable using standard methods, it should not be undertaken because it precludes a more profitable investment later on, when more advanced equipment will be available. The investment decision faced by a firm is presented here as an impulse-control problem, where the process of technological progress is modelled explicitly. The outcome of the optimization yields, in addition to investment expenditures, the expected time period between consecutive investments. A simple example demonstrates the use of the technique in actual investment decisions.     

钠碱法烟气脱硫盐析法结晶工艺开发

钠碱法烟气脱硫盐析法结晶工艺,将含有二氧化硫的烟气经预洗涤除尘后,送入吸收塔,与从上往下喷淋的亚硫酸钠接触反应生成亚硫酸氢钠溶液;将亚硫酸氢钠溶液送至反应结晶器加入氢氧化钠溶液调节PH值析出亚硫酸钠结晶;结晶液经增稠器增稠后,进离心机实现固液分离;亚硫酸钠滤饼经干燥后成为亚硫酸钠产品,离心机脱除的母液和从增稠器上部溢出的溢流液返回吸收塔循环喷淋吸收烟气中的二氧化硫。盐析法结晶工艺比传统钠碱法节约蒸汽。     

应用物联网技术构建高效的农产品物流体系

现代物流是衡量一个国家或地区现代化程度的重要标志,而农业是国民经济的基础,发展农产品物流对农业以及国民经济的发展具有举足轻重的作用。我国是农业大国,农产品资源丰富,但在发展农产品物流中还存在很多问题。文中首先阐述了我国农产品物流体系的现状,然后分析了我国农产品物流体系存在的问题,最后着重提出了应用物联网技术构建农产品物流体系的对策。     

The estimation of the ambulatory medical care technology where output is an unobservable variable

This paper develops and applies a methodology for defining and measuring the outputs of an ambulatory medical care practice. First, hierarchical clustering is used todisaggregate the set of encounters into relatively homogeneous subsets. Second, a further disaggregation of one of these subsets is performed by specifying and estimating a multiple-indicator, multiple-cause (MIMIC) model of the production process. Our MIMIC model differs from the standard version in that (i) the unobserved variable which mediates between the observed causes and indicators is dichotomous rather than continuous, and (ii) the observed indicators are dichotomous variables.     

The Delphi method: Substance,context, a critique and an annotated bibliography

This paper is concerned with a methodology for efficiently obtaining concensus from a panel of evaluators on questions which are shrouded in uncertainty and can not be measured or evaluated in the classical sense. The methodology and its historical development are described, it is placed in context vis-a-vis other methods of subjective scaling, and a critique is provided. An extensive and current annotated bibliography is presented.     

A simple and efficient method for estimating the magnitude and precision of welfare changes

In this article we propose a simple and efficient method of estimating welfare measures in an n-equation system. We also estimate the variance of these measures. The accuracy and convergence properties of our approach are studied: the algorithm converges quadratically. This is a distinct improvement over the Vartia algorithm which converges linearly. We demonstrate the method by evaluating the welfare consequences of price changes in the provision of health care. The GAUSS code, which is very short, is included.     

In search of efficient network structures: the needle in the haystack

Searching for efficient networks can prove a very difficult analytical and even computational task. In this paper, we explore the possibility of using the genetic algorithms (GA) technique to identify efficient network structures in the case of non-trivial payoff functions. The robustness of this method in predicting optimal networks is tested on the two simple stylized models introduced by Jackson and Wolinsky (1996), for which the efficient networks are known over the whole state space of the parameters’ values. This approach allows us to obtain new exploratory results in the case of the linear-spatialized connections model proposed by Johnson and Gilles (Rev Econ Des 5:273–299, 2000), for which the efficient allocation of bilateral connections is driven by contradictory forces that push either for a centralized structure around a coordinating agent, or for only locally and evenly distributed connections. Murat Yıldızoğlu gratefully acknowledges the support of the CCRDT program of Aquitaine Region.     

计算机技术视角下的机械设计方法分析

计算机技术的运用,使机械设计手段变得更加先进。通过计算机技术操作整合机械设计信息,可以有效降低设计者的工作强度,显著提高工作效率,促进我国机械制造业的发展。