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Globally flexible functional forms: The neural distance function

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  • Michaelides, Panayotis G.
  • Vouldis, Angelos T.
  • Tsionas, Efthymios G.

Abstract

The output distance function is a key concept in economics. However, its empirical estimation often violates properties dictated by neoclassical production theory. In this paper, we introduce the neural distance function (NDF) which constitutes a global approximation to any arbitrary production technology with multiple outputs given by a neural network (NN) specification. The NDF imposes all theoretical properties such as monotonicity, curvature and homogeneity, for all economically admissible values of outputs and inputs. Fitted to a large data set for all US commercial banks (1989-2000), the NDF explains a very high proportion of the variance of output while keeping the number of parameters to a minimum and satisfying the relevant theoretical properties. All measures such as total factor productivity (TFP) and technical efficiency (TE) are computed routinely. Next, the NDF is compared with the Translog popular specification and is found to provide very satisfactory results as it possesses the properties thought as desirable in neoclassical production theory in a way not matched by its competing specification.

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  • Michaelides, Panayotis G. & Vouldis, Angelos T. & Tsionas, Efthymios G., 2010. "Globally flexible functional forms: The neural distance function," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 206(2), pages 456-469, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:206:y:2010:i:2:p:456-469
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    2. Tsionas, Mike G. & Izzeldin, Marwan, 2018. "Smooth approximations to monotone concave functions in production analysis: An alternative to nonparametric concave least squares," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 271(3), pages 797-807.
    3. Panayotis G. Michaelides & Efthymios G. Tsionas & Angelos T. Vouldis & Konstantinos N. Konstantakis & Panagiotis Patrinos, 2018. "A Semi-Parametric Non-linear Neural Network Filter: Theory and Empirical Evidence," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 51(3), pages 637-675, March.
    4. Alireza Tamadonnejad & Aisyah Abdul-Rahman & Mariani Abdul-Majid & Mansor Jusoh, 2017. "The evaluation of East Asian banks by considering economic and political conditions as well as country risk," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 27-41, January.
    5. Tsionas, Mike G., 2023. "Combining data envelopment analysis and stochastic frontiers via a LASSO prior," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 304(3), pages 1158-1166.
    6. Anwar Al-Gasaymeh, 2020. "Economic Freedom, Country Risk and Cost Efficiency in Jordan and the GCC Countries," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 21(1), pages 1-17, February.
    7. Tsionas, Mike G., 2020. "Bounded rationality and thick frontiers in stochastic frontier analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 284(2), pages 762-768.
    8. Tsionas, Mike G. & Andrikopoulos, Athanasios, 2020. "On a High-Dimensional Model Representation method based on Copulas," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 284(3), pages 967-979.

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