1,721,013 research outputs found
Efficiency change, technological change and capital accumulation in Italian regions: a sectoral study
No full textThis paper examines the sources of labour productivity in the Italian regions during the period 1980–2004. Five economic sectors are investigated using data envelopment analysis (DEA) and taking into account productive specialisation and sector inefficiencies. Labour productivity change is decomposed into five components by means of Malmquist productivity indices: intra-sector efficiency change, composition efficiency change, input-biased technical change, magnitude component technical change and capital accumulation. Using bootstrap procedure, the components of labour productivity changes are statistically tested. Efficiency analysis shows that productive specialisation is not a source of inefficiency and efficiency gains can be obtained by sector-specific policies. Thus, it is possible to obtain improvements in efficiency in each sector of activity rather than reallocating resources among sectors. The results of the decomposition by sectors reveal heterogeneous sources of growth. The total economy has shown evidence of non-neutral technical change and, it has been found that agriculture, industry and construction experienced capital using technical change. The analysis of the decomposition of the labour productivity growth is complemented by an analysis of β-convergence
What is the difference between specialisation and diversity in hospitals? Investigating their relationship with efficiency
Full text linkThe relationship between hospital specialisation and efficiency is crucial for managing hospital services. We discuss hospital specialisation as a specific instance of the more general concept of diversity and the conceptual opposite of variety. Unlike prior studies that focus on specialisation measures without a theoretical background, we employ the Blau Index, based on the concept of variety, enabling us to assess diversification's impact on efficiency. We apply the non-parametric meta-frontier approach to a sample of Italian hospitals from 2000 to 2019 in a two-stage analysis. In the first phase, we employ Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to evaluate healthcare efficiency. In the second phase, we use bootstrap truncated regression to explore the impact of hospital specialisation and various organisational factors on efficiency. Our findings challenge the prevailing assumption that specialisation leads to higher efficiency, showing instead that hospitals with greater diversification tend to perform better. Hospital managers and regional decision makers can leverage this insight to make informed strategic decisions regarding strategic planning for service delivery
The contribution of physical and human capital accumulation to Italian regional growth: a nonparametric perspective
No full textThis paper examines changes in the labor productivity, efficiency, technology, and physical and human capital experienced by different regions in Italy between 1980 and 2006. Cobb-Douglas and translog production specifications are not supported by the data. Thus, non-parametric methods are used to compute the Malmquist indices and their components. Moreover, the bootstrap technique allows us to determine the confidence intervals of all components of the labor productivity decomposition. The results suggest that the contributions of efficiency, technology, and physical and human capital accumulation to labor productivity growth differ significantly between Southern Italy and the remainder of the country
Behind the words: a quantitative analysis of museums’ tweets
No full textThe rise of Web 2.0 technologies has revolutionized communication, pushing museums to amplify their presence on social media platforms. Scholars have taken a keen interest in exploring the intricate connection between museum activities and social media, especially heightened during the pandemic when museum closures compelled them to adopt social media as a primary mode of interaction. This study employs text mining technologies to delve into the dynamics of words used in tweets by the most active international museums. Analyzing 334,505 tweets from 89 museums spanning 2006–2022, this study goes beyond the pandemic's impact, emphasizing either ‘relationship enforcement’ or ‘digital technologies’ aspects
SISTEMA E METODO DI RAZIONALIZZAZIONE DELLE SCORTE DI MAGAZZINO PER UNA STAGIONE DI VENDITA DI UNA RETE DI PUNTI VENDITA
No full textThe impact of health policy and technology on hospital productivity growth: evidence from Italy
Full text linkThe rapid increase in healthcare costs has drawn the attention of managers and policymakers towards regu-lating health expenditures: many countries have implemented deep reforms to improve efficiency and produc-tivity in the provision of health services. In Italy, the central government has introduced austerity measures,called recovery plans, to force the administrative regions to reduce healthcare deficits. In this study, we firstevaluate the impact of these recovery plans on hospitals’ productivity by calculating the Malmquist pro-ductivity index using data envelopment analysis. Next, we regress the obtained productivity index and itscomponents on a set of explanatory variables to capture the impact of the austerity measures, the moder-ating role of the regional organisational models, the variation in hospitals’ size and management autonomyand the capital intensity. The data used to estimate productivity were for an extensive period – from 2006 to2018. The results could contribute to assessing the increase in the productivity of hospitals and the influenceof government policies on the same
Information and communication technology and labour productivity growth: a production‐frontier approach
Full text linkThis work provides evidence of the positive impact of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on the labour productivity growth of 24 countries, members of the OECD, from 1995 to 2019. Using a non-parametric production-frontier approach, we decompose labour productivity growth into components attributable to technological change (shifts in the world production frontier), efficiency change (movements toward or away from the frontier),
physical (non-ICT) capital change and ICT capital change (movements along the frontier). We find that, on average, the most significant improvement in worldwide labour productivity is attributable to technological change, non-ICT, and ICT capital change over 1995–2019. In addition, we confirm the role of ICT as a general-purpose technology that needs to implement complementary changes in business organisations to exploit its growth opportunities fully. Finally, we conclude that ICT capital contributes to convergence
Introduction to special issue “Efficiency and productivity in the air transport industry”
No full textBrand perceptions of airports using social networks
No full textThe management of social media activities by airports is an emerging issue, and existing empirical literature on the measurement of brand perception in the airport industry is lacking. Usually, the measurement of brand perception is carried out by surveys, which are costly and rapidly become outdated. This study employs a newly developed algorithm to infer brand perceptions by mining the social connections of airports. Twitter accounts of 118 airports in the world are analysed by considering three emerging attributes in the airport industry: environment, disability and luxury. The paper shows how it is possible to identify the current positions of airports in the perception of the customers
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