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Neoclassical versus frontier production models? Testing for the skewness of regression residuals

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  • Kuosmanen, Timo
  • Fosgerau, Mogens

Abstract

The empirical literature on production and cost functions is divided into two strands: 1) the neoclassical approach that concentrates on model parameters, 2) the frontier approach that decomposes the disturbance term to a symmetric noise term and a positively skewed inefficiency term. We propose a theoretical justification for the skewness of the inefficiency term, arguing that this skewness is the key testable hypothesis of the frontier approach. We propose to test the regression residuals for skewness to distinguish the two competing approaches. Our test builds directly upon the asymmetry of regression residuals and does not require any prior distributional assumptions.

Suggested Citation

  • Kuosmanen, Timo & Fosgerau, Mogens, 2009. "Neoclassical versus frontier production models? Testing for the skewness of regression residuals," MPRA Paper 24208, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:24208
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Christian M. Hafner & Hans Manner & Léopold Simar, 2018. "The “wrong skewness” problem in stochastic frontier models: A new approach," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(4), pages 380-400, April.
    2. Subal C. Kumbhakar & Christopher F. Parmeter & Valentin Zelenyuk, 2022. "Stochastic Frontier Analysis: Foundations and Advances I," Springer Books, in: Subhash C. Ray & Robert G. Chambers & Subal C. Kumbhakar (ed.), Handbook of Production Economics, chapter 8, pages 331-370, Springer.
    3. Dai, Xiaofeng, 2016. "Non-parametric efficiency estimation using Richardson–Lucy blind deconvolution," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 248(2), pages 731-739.
    4. Timo Kuosmanen & Andrew L. Johnson, 2010. "Data Envelopment Analysis as Nonparametric Least-Squares Regression," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 58(1), pages 149-160, February.
    5. Alecos Papadopoulos & Christopher F. Parmeter, 2024. "The wrong skewness problem in stochastic frontier analysis: a review," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 61(2), pages 121-134, April.
    6. Antti Saastamoinen, 2015. "Heteroscedasticity Or Production Risk? A Synthetic View," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 459-478, July.
    7. Henderson, Daniel J. & Parmeter, Christopher F., 2015. "A consistent bootstrap procedure for nonparametric symmetry tests," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 78-82.
    8. Mekaroonreung, Maethee & Johnson, Andrew L., 2014. "A nonparametric method to estimate a technical change effect on marginal abatement costs of U.S. coal power plants," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 45-55.
    9. Ahmed S & Sonia Pérez-F & Carlos Carleos A & Norberto C & Pablo Martínez C, 2018. "Inference in Stochastic Frontier Models Based on Asymmetry," Biostatistics and Biometrics Open Access Journal, Juniper Publishers Inc., vol. 4(4), pages 99-108, January.
    10. Niu, Cuizhen & Guo, Xu & Li, Yong & Zhu, Lixing, 2018. "Pairwise distance-based tests for conditional symmetry," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 145-162.
    11. Mark Andor & Christopher Parmeter, 2017. "Pseudolikelihood estimation of the stochastic frontier model," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(55), pages 5651-5661, November.
    12. Mekaroonreung, Maethee & Johnson, Andrew L., 2012. "Estimating the shadow prices of SO2 and NOx for U.S. coal power plants: A convex nonparametric least squares approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 723-732.
    13. Kuosmanen, Timo, 2012. "Stochastic semi-nonparametric frontier estimation of electricity distribution networks: Application of the StoNED method in the Finnish regulatory model," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 2189-2199.
    14. Timo Kuosmanen & Mika Kortelainen, 2012. "Stochastic non-smooth envelopment of data: semi-parametric frontier estimation subject to shape constraints," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 38(1), pages 11-28, August.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Firms and production; Frontier estimation; Hypotheses testing; Production function; Productive efficiency analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C14 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods: General
    • C12 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Hypothesis Testing: General
    • A10 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - General
    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity

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