54 research outputs found
Relative Sources of European Regional Productivity Convergence: A Bootstrap Frontier Approach
No full textEnflo K. and Hjertstrand P. Relative sources of European regional productivity convergence: a bootstrap frontier approach, Regional Studies. This paper addresses the issue of Western European regional productivity growth and convergence by means of data envelopment analysis (DEA), decomposing labour productivity into efficiency change, technical change and capital accumulation. The decomposition shows that most regions have fallen behind the production frontier in efficiency and that capital accumulation has had a diverging effect on the labour productivity distribution. Using bootstrapping methods, the paper also accounts for the inherent bias and the stochastic elements in the efficiency estimation. It is found that the relative ranking of the efficiency scores remains stable after the bias correction, even after controlling for spatially correlated measurement errors, and that the DEA successfully identifies the regions on the production frontier as significantly more efficient than other regions
Relative Sources of European Regional Productivity Convergence: A Bootstrap Frontier Approach [Elektronisk resurs]
No full textEnflo K. and Hjertstrand P. Relative sources of European regional productivity convergence: a bootstrap frontier approach, Regional Studies. This paper addresses the issue of Western European regional productivity growth and convergence by means of data envelopment analysis (DEA), decomposing labour productivity into efficiency change, technical change and capital accumulation. The decomposition shows that most regions have fallen behind the production frontier in efficiency and that capital accumulation has had a diverging effect on the labour productivity distribution. Using bootstrapping methods, the paper also accounts for the inherent bias and the stochastic elements in the efficiency estimation. It is found that the relative ranking of the efficiency scores remains stable after the bias correction, even after controlling for spatially correlated measurement errors, and that the DEA successfully identifies the regions on the production frontier as significantly more efficient than other regions
Det svåra uppdraget - en studie om chefers upplevelser och erfarenheter vid avslutande av anställningar inom offentlig sektor
No full textABSTRACT Author: Göran Hjertstrand Title: The difficult task – a study of experiences among public sector executives in ending employments [translated title] Supervisor: Charlotta Zettervall Assessor: Agneta Hedblom The purpose of this study was to examine experiences among public sector executives in ending employments. The study was based on semi structured interviews with five health and welfare executives in different municipalities of southern Sweden. In the analysis of the study, two theoretical perspectives were used: Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical perspective and a perspective on social power. As a conclusion, all executives considered ending employments as a difficult, emotional and demanding task. It seemed that the removal process to some extent had both physical and mental effects on its performers. Two main themes were discovered that had an impact on the experience of the termination: the reason of the removal and the perceived distance between executive and employee. A complex situation was being described in which executives had to balance a professional and compassionate approach as well as strong and mixed emotions. Findings also demonstrated the importance of documentation and the difficulties in communication regarding the termination. Experience seemed to make the process easier to handle even though every process were being described as unique. In general, the executives regarded their own organizations as important sources of support
Homothetic Preferences Revealed
No full textWe propose a method to recover homothetic preferences from choice data with minor optimization or measurement errors. Our method allows for a more detailed graphical analysis to reveal subjects' preferences and to choose appropriate functional forms for parametric analysis. It can also be used to extend applications of the money metric function, such as parametric recoverability as introduced by Halevy et al. (2017). It can also improve nonparametric comparison of preferences as suggested by Heufer (2014)
Homogeneity, Returns to Scale and (Log)Concavity
No full textThis brief note shows that if a production function, f, is quasiconcave, increasing and homogeneous, then f is concave if it displays nonincreasing returns to scale, and f is logconcave if it displays increasing returns to scale
Income Elasticities Without Parameters
No full textThis paper proposes a simple non-parametric framework to calculate income elasticities from a data set of observed prices and consumed quantities without having to estimate any parameters. The framework can be applied when the price-quantity data satisfies a revealed preference axiom called the strong version of the strong axiom of revealed preference (SSARP). The framework is used to calculate income elasticities for food and non-alcoholic drinks from a rich panel of household expenditures. For this category, it is found that households are rather homogeneous in their demand responses
A Monte Carlo Study of the Necessary and Sufficienct Conditions for Weak Separability
No full textWeak separability is an important concept in many fields of economic theory. This chapter uses Monte Carlo experiments to investigate the performance of newly developed nonparametric revealed preference tests for weak separability. A main finding is that the bias of the sequentially implemented test for weak separability proposed by Fleissig and Whitney (2003) is low. The theoretically unbiased Swofford and Whitney test (1994) is found to perform better than all sequentially implemented test procedures but is found to suffer from an empirical bias, most likely because of the complexity in executing the test procedure. As a further source of information, we also perform sensitivity analyses on the nonparametric revealed preference tests. It is found that the Fleissig and Whitney test seems to be sensitive to measurement errors in the data
Testing for Rationality, Separability and Efficiency
No full textThis thesis aims to propose, evaluate and apply test procedures for rationality, weak separability and efficiency. In particular, it focuses on nonparametric revealed preference procedures. This approach has the advantage of not having to stipulate any functional form for the utility function, unlike the parametric approach which relies on finding a suitable functional form for the utility function. Many nonparametric approaches to testing rationality and weak separability are based on what is referred to in the literature as Afriat’s theorem. The significance of this theorem is that if the observed data satisfy some testable conditions, then the data may be rationalized by a well-behaved utility function that possesses such properties as being non-satiated, continuous, monotonic and concave. Chapter 2 provides a generalization of Afriat's theorem. It is shown that the concavity condition in the theorem may be relaxed to the weaker assumption of semistrict quasi-concavity. In particular, revealed preference conditions are used to check whether a finite data set can be generated by a non-satiated, continuous, monotone and semistrict quasi-concave utility function. In addition, it is shown that a data set can be checked for consistency with economic theory by solving a simple linear programming problem. Chapter 3 investigates the properties of nonparametric revealed preference tests for weak separability by means of Monte Carlo experiments. A block of goods is said to be weakly separable from all other goods when the marginal rate of substitution between any pair of goods in the separable block does not depend on the quantities consumed of any good that is not in the block. A main finding of this thesis is that the bias of the sequential test proposed by Fleissig and Whitney (2003) is low, but that the performance of the test deteriorates substantially when measurement errors are added to the data. The theoretically unbiased test by Swofford and Whitney (1994) is found to suffer from an empirical bias, most probably because the test is heavily dependent on efficient nonlinear optimization routines. Chapter 4, using a data set that comprises yearly observations from 1963-2002 examines separability structures and the demand for food in the Swedish food market. A data-orientated search method based on the multistep test procedure proposed by Jones, Elger, Edgerton and Dutkowsky (2005) is applied to find an appropriate structuring of goods in the demand analysis. Most agricultural studies assume that animalia products, beverage products and vegetabilia products constitute separable groupings. It is shown that this is a misleading assumption when analysing Swedish food data. Chapter 5, co-authored with Kerstin Enflo, addresses the issue of Western European regional productivity growth and convergence by means of data envelopment analysis (DEA), decomposing labor productivity into efficiency change, technical change and capital accumulation. A main finding is that the relative ranking of efficiency scores obtained using DEA is stable with regard to bias-corrections. The decomposition shows that, on average, capital accumulation and technological change have played roughly equally large roles, whereas efficiency changes have contributed negatively
Power against random expenditure allocation for revealed preference tests
No full textThis paper proposes new power indices for revealed preference tests. The indices are based on a model of irrational consumption behavior where the consumer randomly allocates a certain fraction of expenditure. The methods allow a researcher to trace out the entire power curve against random expenditure allocation. The power indices are illustrated on altruistic choices in experimental data
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