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The aim of the paper is to assess the impact of subsidies from the Rural Development Programme of the Czech Republic for the years 2007–2013 (RDP) on the technical inefficiency and the efficiency of Czech agricultural holdings. An unbalanced panel includes 454 Czech farms and 2103 observations for years 2007–2013. The Parametric Stochastic Frontier Analysis is used to assess the technical inefficiency and efficiency. A “true” fixed effects model with RDP subsidies explaining the variance of the inefficiency term is estimated. The results are ambiguous. On one hand, the RDP subsidies contributed to the decrease of variance of the inefficiency term, but on the other, the effect is statistically significant only at 90% level of significance. Therefore, we further tested the medians of inefficiency (efficiency) which are lower (higher) in the subsidized farms. We concluded that there are statistically significant differences depending on whether the farm received the RDP subsidies or not. However, we suggest a further examination of the particular projects using the efficiency of investments indicators.

This paper investigates energy use efficiency at the province level in China using the stochastic frontier panel data model approach. The stochastic frontier model is a parametric model which allows for the modeling of the relationship between energy use and its determinants using different control variables. The main control variables in this paper are energy policy and environmental and regulatory variables. This paper uses province level data from all provinces in China for the period 2010–2017. Three different models are estimated accounting for the panel nature of the data; province-specific heterogeneity and province-specific energy inefficiency effects are separated. The models differ because of their underlying assumptions, but they also complement each other. The paper also explains the degree of inefficiency in energy use by its possible determinants, including those related to the public energy policy and environmental regulations. This research supplements existing research from the perspective of energy policy and regional heterogeneity. The paper identifies potential areas for improving energy efficiency in the western and northeastern regions of China. Its findings provide new empirical evidence for estimating and evaluating China’s energy efficiency and a transition to cleaner energy sources and production.

The efficient use of inputs is indispensable in many developing countries, such as Ethiopia. This study assesses the level and determinants of technical efficiency of smallholder farmers using the true fixed effects (TFE) model. The TFE model separates inefficiency from unobserved heterogeneity. Empirical data come from four rounds of panel data (1994-2009) from the Ethiopian rural household survey (ERHS). A one-step maximum likelihood estimator was employed to estimate the Cobb-Douglas stochastic frontier production function and factors influencing technical efficiency. The results indicated that the major variables affecting technical efficiency are policy responsive, albeit to varying degrees: education of the household head, family size, farm size, land fragmentation, land quality, credit use, extension service, off-farm employment, and crop share. The analyses also identify variables amenable to policy changes in the production function: labor, traction power, farm size, seeds, and fertilizer. The mean household-level efficiency for the surveyed farmers is 0.59, indicating that farmers could improve technical efficiency. This implies that smallholder farms in Ethiopia can reduce the input requirement of producing the average output by 41% if their operations become technically efficient. This study recommends that the above policy variables be considered to make Ethiopian smallholder farmers more efficient.

This study aims to explore the synergy between corporate sustainability and corporate sustainable governance and its effect on a listed firm’s value efficiency. This research studies the interaction of these two critical dimensions of modern business, highlighting their combined effects on the value of the firm. We analyze the effects of corporate sustainability and the interactions of sustainability proxy and corporate governance practices on the value of 45 Saudi listed companies measured by Tobin’s Q during the period 2014–2022 using the True Fixed Effect model. Our results reveal that the average firm value efficiency of listed Saudi firms over a 10-year period is 87%. Our findings reveal that the interaction of corporate sustainability proxy and size of the board, number of board meetings, and board independence improve corporate value efficiency, while the interaction between corporate sustainability and ownership concentration has a negative impact on corporate value efficiency. Our research results indicate that sustainability initiatives can yield favorable effects on a firm’s value efficiency.

This study examines the hypothesis that changes to high-powered incentive regulations have a positive efficiency and productivity growth effects in a regulated electricity distribution industry. We estimate an input distance function using the stochastic frontier analysis method to compute technical efficiency scores for 121 Norwegian utilities over the period 2004–2012. We explore sources of productivity growth by parametrically decomposing the Malmquist productivity index into efficiency change, technical change, and scale change. Unlike previous studies, we examine the difference in performance across two regulatory regimes: yardstick competition (2007–2012) and RPI-X incentive regulation (2004–2006). Results show significant efficiency and productivity growth improvements with embodied technical change as the main driver.

Assessing inbound tourism efficiency helps to understand the potential levels and constraints of inbound tourism flows. In this study, 35 European countries and China were selected as samples and influencing factors oftourism efficiency were constructed within the gravity model (GM) and stochastic frontier analysis (SFA). Taking into account individual heterogeneity, a true fixed-effects stochastic frontier gravity model (TFE-SFA-GM) was developed and empirically analysed using data from 2006 to 2019. The results show that (1) the inbound tourism efficiency of European countries in China is jointly affected by many core factors, such as economic scale, geographic distance, and population size on both sides; (2) the inefficiency factors that affect the inbound tourism efficiency of European countries in China are diversified;(3) the inbound tourism efficiency of European countries in China generally shows an upward trend during the sample period, but there are significant differences in the gap between the frontier level of inbound tourism flow in China and the actual inbound tourism flow. These findings imply that to better attract European tourists, China must continue to maintain and strengthen economic and trade relations with European countries, create a favourable security environment for tourism, highlight the integration of international tourism resources with Chinese culture, and continue to promote them in Europe.

Organizations seek to differentiate themselves in the marketplace by deploying information technology (IT) to develop dynamic IT capabilities and resist competitors' attempts to imitate or improve these capabilities. While this strategy has been justified on the grounds that dynamic IT capabilities are durably heterogeneous, there does not seem to be empirical evidence supporting or refuting this assumption. This study empirically validates the assumption of durable heterogeneity of dynamic organizational IT capability (ITC) due to path dependence. We capture ITC heterogeneity by introducing a framework in which firms try to achieve ITC leadership in their industry and we propose that durable ITC heterogeneity can be attributed to path dependence, and hence, it can be tested using Heckman's true state dependence of ITC leadership status. Using random and fixed effect dynamic logit models, we investigate true state dependence of ITC leadership on a sample of large U.S. firms. The results, which are robust to alternative sample, dependent, and control variable specifications, show that achieving ITC leadership is a true state-dependent process, suggesting durable heterogeneity of ITC due to path dependence. The study contributes to the dynamic capabilities literature and has important managerial implications. The proposed framework for conceptualizing durable resource heterogeneity due to path dependence is general and versatile, thus providing a foundation for future research on dynamic capabilities. The findings provide empirical evidence to confirm that ITC is durably heterogeneous and should be managed as a potential source of competitive advantage.

The aim of the study is to determine the impact of the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) subsidies on farm efficiency, depending on farm economic size. Although the impact of subsidies on efficiency is already relatively well recognised, earlier studies were focused on identifying this issue rather than explaining the variation in its intensity. Typically, the analysis of variation by type of production and country was conducted with microeconomic data. Our survey is based on data from the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) aggregated at the regional level, for farms representative for particular economic size classes. In the survey, we apply stochastic frontier analysis and \"true\" fixed-effects model. The results of the research confirm the hypothesis that the impact of subsidies on efficiency depends on the size of farms. Statistically significant, stimulating effect of subsidies was identified only in the group of the largest farms. Such results put into question the effectiveness of the CAP in stimulating the development of the European Model of Agriculture, and at the same time indicate that in its current form, the policy may interfere with market mechanisms and lead to the phenomenon of \"rent seeking\".

This study aims to investigate the cost efficiency of Turkish commercial banks over the restructuring period of the Turkish banking system, which coincides with the 2008 financial global crisis and the 2010 European sovereign debt crisis. To this end, within the stochastic frontier framework, we employ true fixed effects model, where the unobserved bank heterogeneity is integrated in the inefficiency distribution at a mean level. To select the cost function with the most appropriate inefficiency correlates, we first adopt a search algorithm and then utilize the model averaging approach to verify that our results are not exposed to model selection bias. Overall, our empirical results reveal that cost efficiencies of Turkish banks have improved over time, with the effects of the 2008 and 2010 crises remaining rather limited. Furthermore, not only the cost efficiency scores but also impacts of the crises on those scores appear to vary with regard to bank size and ownership structure, in accordance with much of the existing literature.

Trade that straddles borders in Central Asia plays a vital role in the livelihoods of border communities and buttresses prosperity in often poor regions. By strengthening commercial ties, cultural understanding and deepening community relationships, border trade nurtures amicable relations between neighboring countries. This book examines the characteristics of trade intermediated by a network of bazaars in Central Asia and its significance for local economies. It uncovers the dynamic phenomenon of bazaars in propelling trade. Bazaars were invented in central Asia centuries ago; in their modern form, as highly flexible and low cost centers for trade, endowed with modern sophisticated logistics, bazaars provide a channel parallel to that of formal trade. Bazaars play major roles in regional and national chains of production and distribution with national networks strongly integrated and overlapping across Central Asian economies. They are the major agents for border trade, which fights poverty by cheapening products and by creating employment opportunities, especially for women. The book examines the public policy implications of bazaar or non-standard trade and actions that could be taken to foster such trade. A light regulatory touch and a low fiscal burden would help fight poverty. Improvements in the business climate and elimination of harassment of traders by local officials as well as easing conditions for the movement of peoples and vehicles would be hugely beneficial.But this book goes beyond trade. It considers the potential for border community cooperation in a variety of activities, public services, and shared infrastructure, culture that could yield rich dividends and make meaningless borders as separators of human activities. It examines the example of border cooperation in Europe through Euroregios as a model for Central Asia. Finally, the book concludes with a series of recommendations for public authorities intended to deepen border trade and cooperation.