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Distinguishing between heterogeneity and inefficiency: stochastic frontier analysis of the World Health Organization's panel data on national health care systems

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William Greene (Department of Economics, Stern School of Business, New York University, New York, USA)

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Abstract

The most commonly used approaches to parametric (stochastic frontier) analysis of efficiency in panel data, notably the fixed and random effects models, fail to distinguish between cross individual heterogeneity and inefficiency. This blending of effects is particularly problematic in the World Health Organization's (WHO) panel data set on health care delivery, which is a 191 country, 5-year panel. The wide variation in cultural and economic characteristics of the worldwide sample produces a large amount of unmeasured heterogeneity in the data. This study examines several alternative approaches to stochastic frontier analysis with panel data, and applies some of them to the WHO data. A more general, flexible model and several measured indicators of cross country heterogeneity are added to the analysis done by previous researchers. Results suggest that there is considerable heterogeneity that has masqueraded as inefficiency in other studies using the same data. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/hec.938
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Publisher Info
Article provided by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. in its journal Health Economics.

Volume (Year): 13 (2004)
Issue (Month): 10 ()
Pages: 959-980
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Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:13:y:2004:i:10:p:959-980

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Web page: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. William Greene, 2002. "Fixed and Random Effects in Stochastic Frontier Models," Working Papers 02-16, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  2. Berger, Mark C & Messer, Jodi, 2002. "Public Financing of Health Expenditures, Insurance, and Health Outcomes," Applied Economics, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 34(17), pages 2105-13, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. William H. Greene, 1993. "Frontier Production Functions," Working Papers 93-20, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
  4. Grossman, Michael, 1972. "On the Concept of Health Capital and the Demand for Health," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(2), pages 223-55, March-Apr. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Greene, W., 2001. "Fixed and Random Effects in Nonlinear Models," New York University, Leonard N. Stern School Finance Department Working Paper Seires 01-01, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business-.
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  6. Jondrow, James & Knox Lovell, C. A. & Materov, Ivan S. & Schmidt, Peter, 1982. "On the estimation of technical inefficiency in the stochastic frontier production function model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2-3), pages 233-238, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Hsiao, C., 1992. "Logit and Probit Models," Papers 9210, Southern California - Department of Economics.
  8. Greene, William H., 1980. "Maximum likelihood estimation of econometric frontier functions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 27-56, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. William Greene, 2003. "Distinguishing Between Heterogeneity and Inefficiency: Stochastic Frontier Analysis of the World Health Organization’s Panel Data on National Health Care Systems," Working Papers 03-10, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  10. Pitt, Mark M. & Lee, Lung-Fei, 1981. "The measurement and sources of technical inefficiency in the Indonesian weaving industry," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 43-64, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Greene, William H., 1990. "A Gamma-distributed stochastic frontier model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1-2), pages 141-163. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Schmidt, Peter & Sickles, Robin C, 1984. "Production Frontiers and Panel Data," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 2(4), pages 367-74, October.
  13. Peter Schmidt, 1985. "Frontier production functions," Econometric Reviews, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 4(2), pages 289-328. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. William H. Greene, 2000. "Simulated Likelihood Estimation of the Normal-Gamma Stochastic Frontier Function," Working Papers 00-05, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  15. Battese, G E & Coelli, T J, 1995. "A Model for Technical Inefficiency Effects in a Stochastic Frontier Production Function for Panel Data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 325-32.
  16. Vuong, Quang H, 1989. "Likelihood Ratio Tests for Model Selection and Non-nested Hypotheses," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 307-33, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Kenneth Train, 2003. "Discrete Choice Methods with Simulation," Online economics textbooks, SUNY-Oswego, Department of Economics, number emetr2, March. [Downloadable!]
  18. Polachek, Solomon W & Yoon, Bong Joon, 1996. "Panel Estimates of a Two-Tiered Earnings Frontier," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(2), pages 169-78, March-Apr. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  19. Cornwell, Christopher & Schmidt, Peter & Sickles, Robin C., 1990. "Production frontiers with cross-sectional and time-series variation in efficiency levels," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1-2), pages 185-200. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  20. Luis Orea & Subal C. Kumbhakar, 2004. "Efficiency measurement using a latent class stochastic frontier model," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 169-183, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Heike Wetzel, 2008. "Productivity Growth in European Railways: Technological Progress,Efficiency Change and Scale Effects," Working Paper Series in Economics 101, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  2. Herrera, Santiago & Pang, Gaobo, 2005. "Efficiency of public spending in developing countries : an efficiency frontier approach," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3645, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
  3. Carlos Pestana Barros & Gustavo Ferro & Carlos Romero, 2008. "Technical Efficiency and Heterogeneity of Argentina Pension Funds," Working Papers 2008/29, Department of Economics at the School of Economics and Management (ISEG), Technical University of Lisbon.. [Downloadable!]
  4. Carlos Pestana Barros, 2008. "The Technical Efficiency of UK Airports," Working Papers 2008/10, Department of Economics at the School of Economics and Management (ISEG), Technical University of Lisbon.. [Downloadable!]
  5. Alejandro Esteller-Moré, 2005. "Is There a Connection Between the Tax Administration and the Political Power?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer, vol. 12(5), pages 639-663, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Carlos Pestana Barros & Rui Cunha Marques, 2008. "Performance of European Airports: Regulation, Ownership and Managerial Efficiency," Working Papers 2008/25, Department of Economics at the School of Economics and Management (ISEG), Technical University of Lisbon.. [Downloadable!]
  7. David I. Stern, 2004. "Diffusion of Emissions Abating Technology," Rensselaer Working Papers in Economics 0420, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  8. William Greene, 2004. "Distinguishing between heterogeneity and inefficiency: stochastic frontier analysis of the World Health Organization's panel data on national health care systems," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(10), pages 959-980. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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