IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/applec/v33y2001i7p913-922.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measuring efficiency in the public sector using nonparametric frontier estimators: a study of transit agencies in the USA

Author

Listed:
  • J. F. Nolan
  • P. C. Ritchie
  • J. R. Rowcroft

Abstract

Transit agencies in the USA must provide service under increasing operating constraints. Using data from 1989-1993, technical efficiency among these firms is estimated and characteristics indicative of differential efficiency in transit agencies are identified. This paper verifies the robustness of the second step regression results to the choice of efficiency measure by comparing results of the two step regressions using a pair of non-parametric efficiency estimators. It is discovered that the structure of government subsidy to this industry negatively affects not just cost efficiency, but technical efficiency as well. Furthermore, maintenance appears to be an important component of operational efficiency in this industry.

Suggested Citation

  • J. F. Nolan & P. C. Ritchie & J. R. Rowcroft, 2001. "Measuring efficiency in the public sector using nonparametric frontier estimators: a study of transit agencies in the USA," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(7), pages 913-922.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:33:y:2001:i:7:p:913-922
    DOI: 10.1080/00036840122663
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00036840122663
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00036840122663?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fried, Harold O. & Lovell, C. A. Knox & Schmidt, Shelton S. (ed.), 1993. "The Measurement of Productive Efficiency: Techniques and Applications," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195072181, Decembrie.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cinzia Daraio & Marco Diana & Flavia Di Costa & Claudio Leporelli & Giorgio Matteucci & Alberto Nastasi, 2014. "Efficiency and effectiveness in the urban public transport sector: a critical review with directions for future research," DIAG Technical Reports 2014-14, Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering, Universita' degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza".
    2. Yang Pan & LiangFei Qiu, 2018. "Is Uber Helping or Hurting Mass Transit? An Empirical Investigation," Working Papers 18-11, NET Institute.
    3. Lambert, Thomas & Srinivasan, Arun & Dufrene, Uric & Min, Hokey, 2010. "Urban Location and the Success of Casinos in Five States: A Data Envelopment Analysis Approach," MPRA Paper 69740, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Tamaki, Tetsuya & Nakamura, Hiroki & Fujii, Hidemichi & Managi, Shunsuke, 2019. "Efficiency and emissions from urban transport: Application to world city-level public transportation," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 55-63.
    5. Juan Gómez-García & María del Rocio Moreno Enguix & Juan Cándido Gómez-Gallego, 2011. "Estimation Of The Efficiency Of Structural Funds: A Parametric And Non-Parametric Approach," Post-Print hal-00712385, HAL.
    6. Tolga Ülkü & Vahidin Jeleskovic & Jürgen Müller, 2014. "How scale and institutional setting explain the costs of small airports? -An application of spatial regression analysis," MAGKS Papers on Economics 201435, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    7. Daraio, Cinzia & Diana, Marco & Di Costa, Flavia & Leporelli, Claudio & Matteucci, Giorgio & Nastasi, Alberto, 2016. "Efficiency and effectiveness in the urban public transport sector: A critical review with directions for future research," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 248(1), pages 1-20.
    8. Thomas E. Lambert & Arun Kumar Srinivasan & Uric B. Dufrene & Hokey Min, 2010. "Urban Location And The Success Of Casinos In Five States," International Journal of Management and Marketing Research, The Institute for Business and Finance Research, vol. 3(3), pages 1-16.
    9. Zehmed KARIM & Jawab FOUAD, 2019. "An Analysis Of Technical Efficiency Of Public Bus Transport Companies In Moroccan Cities," Management Research and Practice, Research Centre in Public Administration and Public Services, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 11(1), pages 56-73, March.
    10. Min, Hokey & Lambert, Thomas, 2013. "An Exploratory Evaluation of State Road Provision to Commuters and Shippers using Data Envelopment Analysis and Tobit Regression," MPRA Paper 47196, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Zuzana Kučerová, 2012. "Measuring of Efficiency in the Public and Private Sector - Current Research Approaches [Měření efektivity ve veřejném a soukromém sektoru - rešerše dosavadních přístupů]," Český finanční a účetní časopis, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2012(2), pages 110-125.
    12. Yang Pan & Liangfei Qiu, 2022. "How Ride‐Sharing Is Shaping Public Transit System: A Counterfactual Estimator Approach," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 31(3), pages 906-927, March.
    13. Yu, Ming-Miin & Chen, Li-Hsueh & Hsiao, Bo, 2016. "Dynamic performance assessment of bus transit with the multi-activity network structure," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 15-25.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Franz R. Hahn, 2007. "Determinants of Bank Efficiency in Europe. Assessing Bank Performance Across Markets," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 31499, February.
    2. Wu, Yanrui, 1995. "The productive efficiency of Chinese iron and steel firms A stochastic frontier analysis," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 215-222, September.
    3. Sergio Destefanis & Vania Sena, 2007. "Patterns of corporate governance and technical efficiency in Italian manufacturing," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(1), pages 27-40.
    4. Young Hoon Lee, 2009. "The Impact of Postseason Restructuring on the Competitive Balance and Fan Demand in Major League Baseball," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 10(3), pages 219-235, June.
    5. Hu, Jin-Li & Wang, Shih-Chuan & Yeh, Fang-Yu, 2006. "Total-factor water efficiency of regions in China," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 217-230, December.
    6. Dhehibi, Boubaker & Lachaal, Lassaad & Elloumi, Mohamed & Messaoud, Emna B., 2007. "Measurement and Sources of Technical Inefficiency in the Tunisian Citrus Growing Sector," 103rd Seminar, April 23-25, 2007, Barcelona, Spain 9391, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    7. Sanstad, Alan H. & DeCanio, Stephen J. & Boyd, Gale A. & Koomey, Jonathan G., 2001. "Estimating bounds on the economy-wide effects of the CEF policy scenarios," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(14), pages 1299-1311, November.
    8. Contreras, Dulce/D & Sánchez, Rosario/R & Soria, Delfina/D, 2012. "Mobility, wages and gender across Europe," MPRA Paper 42589, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Nov 2012.
    9. Oleg Badunenko & Michael Fritsch & Andreas Stephan, 2006. "What Determines the Technical Efficiency of a Firm? The Importance of Industry, Location, and Size," Jenaer Schriften zur Wirtschaftswissenschaft (Expired!) 33/2006, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    10. Badunenko, Oleg & Galeotti, Marzio & Hunt, Lester C., 2021. "Better to grow or better to improve? Measuring environmental efficiency in OECD countries with a Stochastic Environmental Kuznets Frontier," FEEM Working Papers 316226, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    11. Allen N. Berger & David B. Humphrey, 1994. "Bank scale economies, mergers, concentration, and efficiency: the U.S. experience," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 94-23, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    12. Oguntade, Adegboyega Eyitayo & Fatunmbi, Temitope Enitan & Folayan, Joshua Adio, 2013. "Productivity of Timber Processing in Ondo State, Nigeria," Sustainable Agriculture Research, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 2(1).
    13. Botti, Laurent & Briec, Walter & Cliquet, Gérard, 2009. "Plural forms versus franchise and company-owned systems: A DEA approach of hotel chain performance," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 566-578, June.
    14. Roberto Colombi & Subal Kumbhakar & Gianmaria Martini & Giorgio Vittadini, 2014. "Closed-skew normality in stochastic frontiers with individual effects and long/short-run efficiency," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 42(2), pages 123-136, October.
    15. Coelli, Tim J. & Battese, George E., 1996. "Identification Of Factors Which Influence The Technical Inefficiency Of Indian Farmers," Australian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 40(2), pages 1-26, August.
    16. Abhiman Das & K. R. Sanmugam, 2004. "Efficiency of Indian commercial banks during the reform period," Industrial Organization 0410005, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. repec:bdr:ensayo:v::y:2005:i:49:p:88-132 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Atheendar S. Venkataramani & K.R. Shanmugam & Jennifer Prah Ruger, 2010. "Health, Technical Efficiency, And Agricultural Production In Indian Districts," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 35(4), pages 1-23, December.
    19. K. -L. Wang & Y. -T. Tseng & C. -C. Weng, 2003. "A study of production efficiencies of integrated securities firms in Taiwan," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(3), pages 159-167.
    20. Philippe K. Widmer & Peter Zweifel, 2008. "Public Good Provision in a Federalist Country: Tiebout Competition, Fiscal Equalization, and Incentives for Efficiency in Switzerland," SOI - Working Papers 0804, Socioeconomic Institute - University of Zurich, revised Dec 2010.
    21. Kerekes, Monika, 2007. "Analyzing patterns of economic growth: a production frontier approach," Discussion Papers 2007/15, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:33:y:2001:i:7:p:913-922. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEC20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.