IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/applec/v51y2019i46p5012-5030.html

The transient and persistent efficiency of Italian and German universities: a stochastic frontier analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Tommaso Agasisti
  • Sabine Gralka

Abstract

Despite measures on the European level to increase the compatibility between the higher education sectors, the recent literature exposes variations in their efficiencies. To gain insights into these differences, we split the efficiency term according to the two management levels each university is confronted with. We separate short-term and long-term efficiency while controlling for unobserved institution-specific heterogeneity. We argue that the first term reflects the efficiency of the individual universities working within the country, while the second term echoes the influence of the overall country-specific higher education structure. The cross-country comparison displays whether efficiency differences between countries are related to the individual performance of their universities or their higher education structure. This allows more purposeful policy recommendations and expands the literature regarding the efficiency of universities in a fundamental way. Choosing Italy and Germany as two important illustrative examples, we show that the Italian higher education sector exhibits a higher overall efficiency value. With the individual universities working at the upper bound of efficiency in both countries, the remaining inefficiency and the gap between the countries are caused by persistent, structural inefficiency. Future measures should hence aim at the country-specific structure and not solely at the activities of single universities.

Suggested Citation

  • Tommaso Agasisti & Sabine Gralka, 2019. "The transient and persistent efficiency of Italian and German universities: a stochastic frontier analysis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(46), pages 5012-5030, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:51:y:2019:i:46:p:5012-5030
    DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2019.1606409
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00036846.2019.1606409
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00036846.2019.1606409?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 look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C14 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods: General
    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • I22 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Educational Finance; Financial Aid
    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • H52 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Education

    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:51:y:2019:i:46:p:5012-5030. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.