We discuss how to properly decompose economic efficiency when the underlying technology is non-homothetic using alternative allocative and technical efficiency criteria. We first show that only under the production of one output and assuming the particular case of constant returns to scale homotheticity, we may claim that the standard radial models correctly measure pure technical efficiency. O...

This paper examines the question of modifying the decomposition of a partially separable function in order to improve computational eciency of large-scale minimization algorithms using a conjugate-gradient inner iteration. The context and motivation are given and the application of a simple strategy discussed on examples extracted from the CUTE test problem collection.

In discussions on the development of the institutional framework for decisions on the benefit package of social health insurance in Germany, the English National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) is considered as either a good or a bad example for reform. According to this study, the procedures and criteria applied by NICE for making health care coverage decisions are legitimate. Procedu...

Achieving allocative and technically efficient spectrum management is a key aspect of deregulatory reforms in several OECD countries. However, reform legislation offers few clues as to how these objectives should rank when they conflict with one another. An `innocent' prior acquisition of service-neutral spectrum at an efficiently run auction may prove allocative efficient but fail to be techni...

I study the ex-ante efficient allocation of a set of quality-heterogeneous objects to a number of heterogeneous risk-neutral agents. Agents have independent private values, which represent the maximum cost they are willing to sustain to obtain an object of unitary quality. The designer faces a trade-off between allocative efficiency and cost of screening, because the cost sustained is wasted. T...

This paper estimates dynamic efficiency in the Spanish construction industry before and during the current financial crisis over the period 2001-2009. Static efficiency measures are biased in a context of a significant economic crisis with large investments and disinvestments as they do not account for costs in the adjustment of quasi-fixed factors. The results show that overall dynamic cost in...

Incentive regulation is designed to improve productive efficiency, enhance service quality and consumer welfare, and reduce the costs of regulation. The issue that is considered here is whether incentive regulation in the form of a price cap applicable to interstate access service to local loops in the telecommunications industry in the United States has resulted in an increase in the technical...

We study equilibrium prices and trade volume in a market with n identical buyers and a seller who initially commits to some capacity. Sales are sequential and each price is determined by strategic bargaining. A unique subgame perfect equilibrium exists. It is characterized by absence of costly bargaining delays and each trade is settled at a different price. Prices increase with n and fall in t...