Magdalena Kapelko

Assessing dynamic inefficiency of the Spanish construction sector pre- and post-financial crisis

This paper undertakes the full decomposition of dynamic cost inefficiency into technical, scale and allocative inefficiency based on the dynamic directional distance function. The empirical application estimates dynamic inefficiency in the Spanish construction industry before and during the current financial crisis over the period 2001–2009. Static inefficiency measures are biased in a context of a significant economic crisis with large investments and disinvestments as they do not account for costs in the adjustment of quasi-fixed factors. Allocative inefficiency is smaller, while technical inefficiency is larger when using the dynamic compared to the static framework. Results further indicate that overall dynamic cost inefficiency is very high with technical inefficiency being the largest component, followed by allocative and scale inefficiency. Moreover, overall dynamic cost inefficiency is significantly larger before the beginning of the financial crisis than during the financial crisis. Larger firms are less technically and scale inefficient than smaller firms on average, but have more problems in choosing the mix of inputs that minimizes their long-term costs. Firms that went bankrupt, on average, have a higher overall dynamic cost inefficiency and scale inefficiency than continuing firms.

Effect of Food Regulation on the Spanish Food Processing Industry: A Dynamic Productivity Analysis

This article develops the decomposition of the dynamic Luenberger productivity growth indicator into dynamic technical change, dynamic technical inefficiency change and dynamic scale inefficiency change in the dynamic directional distance function context using Data Envelopment Analysis. These results are used to investigate for the Spanish food processing industry the extent to which dynamic productivity growth and its components are affected by the introduction of the General Food Law in 2002 (Regulation (EC) No 178/2002). The empirical application uses panel data of Spanish meat, dairy, and oils and fats industries over the period 1996-2011. The results suggest that in the oils and fats industry the impact of food regulation on dynamic productivity growth is negative initially and then positive over the long run. In contrast, the opposite pattern is observed for the meat and dairy processing industries. The results further imply that firms in the meat processing and oils and fats industries face similar impacts of food safety regulation on dynamic technical change, dynamic inefficiency change and dynamic scale inefficiency change.

Technical Efficiency of the Spanish Dairy Processing Industry: Do Size and Exporting Matter?

This chapter uses DEA to measure the technical efficiency of a sample of Spanish dairy processing firms over the period 2001–2009. Differences in technical efficiency between firms of different sizes and between firms that operated in international markets versus those that were not are tested. The results show that larger dairy processing firms were, on average, more efficient than smaller ones. Furthermore, within the groups of small and large firms, those firms that are exporting were more efficient than firms that do not export. The distribution of technical efficiency, of the small- and micro-sized exporters, stochastically dominates the distribution of the non-exporters in most years.

Technical efficiency and its determinants in the Spanish construction sector pre- and post-financial crisis

This paper estimates technical efficiency in the Spanish construction sector before and after the start of the current financial crisis, and examines the impact of socio-economic factors on technical efficiency. Bias-corrected efficiency measures are obtained using Data Envelopment Analysis with bootstrap for a sample of medium-sized and large construction firms over the period 2000-2010. Next, bias-corrected efficiency scores are regressed on the variables explaining efficiency using bootstrap truncated regression. The results show that technical efficiency is very low and is significantly lower after the beginning of the financial crisis than before. Firms with the highest technical efficiency scores have the lowest input-ratio for material and employee costs to output and the highest for fixed assets. The examination of the determinants of technical efficiency indicates that efficiency is higher for firms that export, are highly leveraged, are integrated in the form of joint stock company, and are located in Spanish regions with higher GDP per capita, while firms with high stock relatively to turnover have lower technical efficiency. Technical efficiency increases with size for relatively small sized construction firms, but decreases beyond a critical firm size, while technical efficiency decreases with age for young firms, but eventually increases for older firms.

Dynamic multi-directional inefficiency analysis of European dairy manufacturing firms

This paper extends the method of multi-directional inefficiency analysis to account for dynamics of firms’ production decisions. The resulting approach – dynamic multi-directional inefficiency analysis – measures variable input- and investment-specific inefficiency using Data Envelopment Analysis. The empirical application focuses on panel data of large dairy manufacturing firms over the period 2005–2012 in three European regions (Eastern, Southern and Western). The results show that investments are the most inefficient factor for firms in all European regions, followed by labour and materials. However, the findings also suggest a high dispersion of investment-specific inefficiency scores within the sample. The paper also finds that the median dynamic inefficiency is changing rapidly in the years after the beginning of the financial crisis.

Measuring Inefficiency for Specific Inputs Using Data Envelopment Analysis: Evidence from Construction Industry in Spain and Portugal

This article contributes to the efficiency literature by defining, in the context of the data envelopment analysis framework, the directional distance function approach for measuring both technical and scale inefficiencies with regard to the use of individual inputs. The input-specific technical and scale inefficiencies are then aggregated in order to calculate the overall inefficiency measures. Empirical application focuses on a large dataset of Spanish and Portuguese construction companies between 2002 and 2010 and accounts for three inputs: materials, labor and fixed assets. The results show, first, that for both Spanish and Portuguese construction companies, fixed assets are the most technically inefficient input. Second, the most inefficient scale concerns the utilization of material input in both samples; the reason for this inefficiency is that firms tend to operate in the increasing returns to scale portion of technology set. Third, in both samples, large firms have the lowest input-specific technical inefficiencies, but the highest input-specific scale inefficiencies, compared to their small and medium-sized counterparts, and tend to suffer from decreasing returns to scale. Finally, in both samples, input-specific technical inefficiency under constant returns to scale increased during the period of the recent financial crisis, mainly due to the augmentation in scale inefficiency.

Examining the relation between intangible assets and technical efficiency in the international textile and clothing industry

The resource-based view of the firm suggests that intangible assets have a positive impact on firm performance. This study examined the relation between intangible assets and technical efficiency of textile and clothing firms. A double bootstrap data envelopment analysis approach was used to measure and explain technical efficiency. The empirical application used a data-set of the textile and clothing industry over the period 1995–2004 with a worldwide coverage. The results show that intangible assets had a positive relation with technical efficiency of the textile and clothing firms. Debt and membership of EU had a negative relation, whereas size, membership of NAFTA, and GDP per capita were positively related with technical efficiency.

The impact of internationalization and diversification on construction industry performance

This paper investigates the impact of internationalization and diversification strategies on the financial performance of construction industry companies. The results obtained can guide the design of strategies to pursue company growth and achieve competitive advantage. The evaluation of companies’ performance is based on the use of the Data Envelopment Analysis technique to aggregate financial indicators using optimized weights. The impact of internationalization and diversification on company performance is explored using truncated regression, controlling for the effect of contextual factors such as company age, size and time. Data Envelopment Analysis and truncated regression were complemented with bootstrapping to ensure the robustness of the results obtained. The activity of Portuguese and Spanish contractors in the period 2002 to 2011 is used as case study. The empirical results show that internationalization has a positive impact on financial performance, although this effect is only statistically significant for Spanish contractors. Diversification has a nonlinear relationship with performance, benefiting companies with either a small number of core activities or companies with a broad scope of activities.

Input-Specific Dynamic Productivity Change: Measurement and Application to European Dairy Manufacturing Firms

We propose a new method for measuring and decomposing input-specific productivity change in a dynamic context. The resulting input-specific dynamic Luenberger productivity change indicator is decomposed to identify the contributions of input-specific dynamic technical, technical inefficiency and scale inefficiency changes. The empirical application of the paper focuses on panel data of large firms in the European dairy processing industry over the period 2005–2012. The results show similar patterns for dynamic input-specific productivity change and its components for labour across European regions (Eastern, Western and Southern), while differences between regions are found regarding materials and investments.

Assessing the Impact of Changing Economic Environment on Productivity Growth: The Case of the Spanish Dairy Processing Industry

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the productivity growth of the Spanish dairy processing industry from 1996 till 2011, which concerns the period of increased EU regulation regarding food safety as well as economic crisis. Data envelopment analysis is used to compute the Malmquist index and its components. The results suggest that productivity on average declined during the period under investigation. The decomposition of the Malmquist index finds that technical regress contributed to productivity decline despite improvements in technical and scale efficiencies. Our results also suggest that food safety regulations did not have a negative impact on productivity growth. Technical change and scale efficiency change made significant negative contributions to productivity growth in the period under crisis, whereas firms significantly improved their technical efficiency in that period.