Non-Interest Income and Bank Efficiency in Ghana: A Two-Stage DEA Bootstrapping Approach

This paper examines the effect of the inclusion of non-interest income on efficiency and economies of scale of Ghanaian banks in a two-stage analysis. The data envelopment analysis technique is employed to estimate efficiency scores with and without non-interest income of 26 Ghanaian banks from 2003 to 2011 in the first-stage analysis. In the second stage, a truncated bootstrapped regression is estimated to examine the effect of contextual variables on bootstrapped efficiency scores. The findings indicate that the exclusion of non-interest income as output variable leads to the under-estimation of efficiency scores. From the second-stage regression analysis, we find a curve-linear relationship between bank size and efficiency to suggest that bank efficiency increases as size also increase due to economies of scale but only up to an optimal point after which inefficiency sets. Market concentration, leverage, and loan loss provisions are also identified as the other significant determinants of efficiency. Policy implications for improving bank efficiency are discussed.     

Airport performance in a tourism receiving country: Evidence from Greece

The aim of this study is to estimate the performance of 38 Greek airports. The analysis is performed in two stages. Firstly, efficiency scores for each airport are estimated using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) original and bootstrap techniques. Secondly, statistical assessments (Mann–Whitney U and Kruskal–Wallis tests) and a censored Tobit regression model are employed to identify which factors significantly explain variations in the airport efficiency. The results indicated the scope for substantial efficiency improvements. In addition, island location, connectivity, and hotel infrastructure in the area were found to be significant factors affecting airport efficiency.     

The impact of corporate governance on state-owned and non-state-owned firms efficiency in China

The purpose of this paper is to expand the literature on the corporate governance of transition economies by analyzing the relationship between corporate governance and productive efficiency in China's publicly listed manufacturing industry firms. We use the principal component analysis and the hybrid meta-frontier DEA model, separating inputs into radial inputs that change proportionally and non-radial inputs that change non-proportionally to measure the technical efficiency and technology gap ratios of publicly listed Chinese firms in different manufacturing industries during 2010–2013. The input variables are the net value of fixed assets, staff number, and the characteristics of the corporate governance system, while the output variables are gross revenue and total profit. The empirical result shows that inefficiency due to corporate governance is the main reason for lower efficiency in most manufacturing firms. For the technology gap ratio (TGR), the metal and mineral and the machinery, equipment and instrument are the two highest efficient sectors, whereas the paper and allied products sub-industry has the lowest efficiency during 2010–2013. In addition, the ratio of state-owned firms whose inefficiency is mainly caused by corporate governance to total state-owned firms is greater than that of non-state-owned firms in each year. The TGR analysis shows that the efficiency performance of non-state-owned firms is greater than state-owned firms.     

Evaluation of ecological systems and the recycling of undesirable outputs: An efficiency study of regions in China

A balance between environmental regulation and economic prosperity has become a major issue of concern to attain a sustainable society in China. This study proposes the application of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) for measuring the efficiencies of the ecological systems in various regions of that country. The proposed approach differs from most of the previous ecological systems models in that we view it in a two stage setting; the first stage models the ecological system itself, and from an economic perspective, while the second stage (decontamination system) models water recycling as a feedback process, and the treatment of other undesirable outputs coming from the first stage. There, we separate polluting gases and water into two parts; one part is treated, while the other is discharged. The model considers two major desirable outputs from the first stage, namely Population and Gross Region Product by expenditure (GRP), as well as undesirable variables in the form of consumed water, and certain pollutants, namely nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and soot. At the same time, these undesirable outputs from the first stage are inputs to the second decontamination stage. As well, recycled water is fed back into stage 1. Thus, intermediate variables such as consumed water and waste gas emission simultaneously play dual roles of both outputs and inputs in the ecological system.     

B2C电子商务服务质量评价研究

通过借鉴成熟的B2C电子商务服务质量测评指标体系,采用层次分析法计算各级评价指标权重,以天猫为研究平台进行实证调研,进而得到对天猫的服务质量评价得分:天猫的总体服务质量处于较好水平,其中,服务过程指标的整体服务水平较高;而服务结果指标的整体服务水平次之,有待进一步提升;至于服务补救指标的整体服务水平较低,且低于天猫的整体服务质量,需要加强改进。微观上,该项研究可以指导天猫有针对性地提升企业服务质量,进一步提高顾客满意度和忠诚度;宏观上,该项研究为国内B2C电子商务企业服务质量评价提供了参考框架和决策依据,将有效促进国内电子商务行业服务质量的提升,推动电子商务行业的持续发展。     

APPROACHES AND METHODS FOR THE ECONOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF MARKET POWER: A SURVEY AND EMPIRICAL COMPARISON

This study discusses two widely used approaches in the New Empirical Industrial Organization (NEIO) literature and examines the strengths and weaknesses of the Production-Theoretic Approach (PTA) and the General Identification Method (GIM) for the econometric analysis of market power in agricultural and food markets. We provide a framework that may help researchers to evaluate and improve structural models of market power. Starting with the specification of the approaches in question, we compare published empirical studies of market power with respect to the choice of the applied approach, functional forms, estimation methods and derived estimates of the degree of market power. Thereafter, we use our framework to evaluate several structural models based on PTA and GIM to measure oligopsony power in the Ukrainian dairy industry. The PTA-based results suggest that the estimated parameters of oligopsony power are significantly different from zero, while GIM-based results do not indicate any evidence of oligopsony market power in the Ukrainian dairy industry. Moreover, estimations results vary substantially due to the employed estimation procedure.     

Exchange market pressure in India

We empirically investigate episodes of currency market stress in India during the period January 1992–August 2014 with the help of a monthly EMP index for India constructed for this period. We analyse the distribution of the extreme values of the EMP index by using Extreme Value Theory (EVT) and utilize the knowledge of the extreme values of our EMP index to identify currency market stress in India during this period. We analyse these stress episodes in the context of the prevailing economic situation. We also present a decomposition of the contribution of different factors towards exchange market pressure.     

惩罚制度在安全管理中的运用

惩罚方法是安全管理过程的一项重要的方法，合理运用这些方法才能达到安全管理的终极目标。     

利用逻辑分析仪分析微机系统的数据流

本文描述通过应用HP1630A逻辑分析仪对MCS的典型状态数据流进行检测,从而对MCS的程序流进行分析,其目的在于为MCS的数据流分析提供一种可靠而有效的方法.     

Efficient Facet Based Efficiency Index: A Variable Returns to Scale Specification

The appearance of strictly positive slack variables in DEA solutions causes well known computational and analytical problems studied by Olesen and Petersen (1996) and Green et al. (1996) under constant returns to scale. This paper discusses variable returns to scale and suggests the use of efficient facets (EFs) in the reference technology. It is found to give a lower bound of the efficiency scores. Most importantly, efficiency measured with respect to EFs—the EF based efficiency index—may decrease if additional variables are introduced but are disposed in production. Thus, units are penalized for disposal of incoming variables, and the EF based efficiency index captures the net efficiency of a unit. EF is found to be a useful tool also to search a suitable set of variables for efficiency measurement. Its use is demonstrated with Finnish university data and it is found to change the measured performance of the university sector quite significantly.